Visualisation by Angela Ho for FIT3179, using this dataset

Australian Shark-bite Incidents

The Australian Shark-Incident Database (ASID), formerly known as the Australian Shark Attack File (ASAF), is a dataset first created by members of the Taronga Conservation Society Australia in 1984. It has since kept an active and uninterrupted record of shark-human interactions, from incidents reporting back from 1791 until now.

At present, the Australian Shark-Incident Database (ASID) is maintained by a joint partnership with Taronga Conservation Society Australia, Flinders University, and the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries.

Distribution of Shark-bite Incidents in Australia from 1803 to 2022

Hover over states to see total incidents per state, and over individual points to see details about the year, location, species and nature of the incident. Additionally:

➜ Drag the Years before slider to view cumulative incidents by year
➜ Filter by Provoked/Unprovoked shark incidents
➜ Filter by Injury level to filter between uninjured, injured and fatal incidents

*Please note missing data values in some fields. For example, although the records date back to 1791, details such as the number of sharks was not included, hence not plotted.

Trend of Shark-bite incidents

The number of recorded shark incidents has increased since 1791, with drastic increases starting to occur from 1970 and onwards. The steep decrease in 2020 can be attributed to lockdown rules due to COVID-19.

Most victims come out from a shark incident uninjured. As of recent (~1980), the number of fatal incidents have been lower than the number of injured incidents.

Note that the trend observed does not necessarily mean shark bite incidents are increasing, only that the number of recorded incidents have increased — whether than be the advent of technology, more people going to beaches, or sharks coming closer to shore in recent years...

The Top 5 Perpetrators of Shark-bite incidents

The white shark can be attributed to the most shark incidents, totalling to 359 incidents since the earliest records. Coming second is the tiger shark, with the wobbegong shark, which interesting has no records of fatal incidents, coming in third. In fourth and fifth are the bull shark and whaler shark.

Hover over the chart to see detailed information about the number of uninjured, injured and fatal incidents, as well as the total incidents recorded per shark.

Timing of shark bite incidents

Shark-bite incidents, in general, are recorded more frequently during the Summer months, January and February. From May through to September, very few incidents are recorded.

Victim activity during time of incident

The majority of shark-incident victims were reported to be swimming, boarding or snorkelling during the time of the incident.