UMR 228 ESPACE-DEV, Université de La Réunion, IRD, Parc Technologique Universitaire, 2 rue Joseph Wetzell CS 41095, 97495, Sainte-Clotilde Cedex, France.
Institute for Coastal and Marine Research, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, 6031, South Africa.
Sci Rep. 2018 Feb 27;8(1):3676. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-21553-0.
Understanding the environmental drivers of interactions between predators and humans is critical for public safety and management purposes. In the marine environment, this issue is exemplified by shark-human interactions. The annual shark bite incidence rate (SBIR) in La Réunion (Indian Ocean) is among the highest in the world (up to 1 event per 24,000 hours of surfing) and has experienced a 23-fold increase over the 2005-2016 period. Since 1988, 86% of shark bite events on ocean-users involved surfers off the leeward coast, where 96% of surfing activities took place. We modeled the SBIR as a function of environmental variables, including benthic substrate, sea temperature and period of day. The SBIR peaked in winter, during the afternoon and dramatically increased on coral substrate since the mid-2000s. Seasonal patterns of increasing SBIR followed similar fluctuations of large coastal shark occurrences (particularly the bull shark Carcharhinus leucas), consistent with the hypothesis that higher shark presence may result in an increasing likelihood of shark bite events. Potential contributing factors and adaptation of ocean-users to the increasing shark bite hazard are discussed. This interdisciplinary research contributes to a better understanding of shark-human interactions. The modeling method is relevant for wildlife hazard management in general.
了解捕食者和人类之间相互作用的环境驱动因素对于公共安全和管理目的至关重要。在海洋环境中，鲨鱼与人类的相互作用就是一个很好的例子。留尼汪岛（印度洋）的年鲨鱼咬伤发生率（SBIR）是世界上最高的之一（每 24000 小时冲浪就有 1 次事件），并且在 2005-2016 年期间增加了 23 倍。自 1988 年以来，在涉及到离风海岸的冲浪者的海洋使用者的鲨鱼咬伤事件中，有 86%发生在那里，而 96%的冲浪活动都发生在那里。我们将 SBIR 建模为环境变量的函数，包括海底基质、海水温度和一天中的时间。SBIR 在冬季达到峰值，下午最高，并且自 2000 年代中期以来，珊瑚基质上的 SBIR 急剧增加。SBIR 的季节性增加模式与大型沿海鲨鱼出现的类似波动一致（特别是牛鲨 Carcharhinus leucas），这与更高的鲨鱼存在可能导致鲨鱼咬伤事件发生的可能性增加的假设一致。讨论了潜在的促成因素和海洋使用者对不断增加的鲨鱼咬伤危险的适应。这项跨学科研究有助于更好地了解鲨鱼与人类的相互作用。该建模方法通常适用于野生动物危害管理。
