The relationship between shark attacks and rising temperatures 1:36
(CNN) --
Reports of shark bites and sightings have been heard along both coasts of the United States this summer, prompting beach closures and advisories.
On Long Island, New York, several people were injured in suspected shark attacks this month.
To the northeast, a Cape Cod beach was temporarily closed after a great white shark sighting.
In Northern California, a man was hospitalized in serious condition last month after being bitten by a shark while swimming near Gray Whale Cove state beach.
How to survive a shark attack?
But even as shark encounters make headlines this summer, the risk of being attacked by these often misunderstood creatures remains low, and many other things are far more dangerous.
Cows and bees kill more people each year than sharks, according to the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife.
“Your chances of getting bitten are like your chances of winning the Powerball,” said marine biology professor Christopher Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University Long Beach.
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In other words: it's not likely to happen.
Furthermore, humans are a much greater danger to sharks than sea creatures are to us.
On average, sharks kill five people per year in unprovoked attacks.
Meanwhile, humans kill tens of millions of sharks every year.
These phenomena are more likely to kill or injure you than a shark
“You have a much higher risk of driving to the beach, or even getting caught in a rip current, than if you were bitten by a shark,” Lowe said.
To shed light on how slim your chances are of being attacked by a shark, the Florida Museum of Natural History has a list of phenomena that are most likely to lead to death and injury.
So before you give up getting in the water on your next trip to the beach, here's what you need to know:
In Florida, where the majority of shark attacks in the US occur, people were almost 21 times more likely to die in a tornado (125 deaths) than from a shark bite (six deaths) between 1985 and 2010.
Residents of Florida and five other states with alligators were also more likely to die from the reptile bite (18 deaths) than from a shark bite (9).
There were 15,011 bicyclist deaths in the US compared to 14 shark deaths between 1990 and 2009, meaning Americans were a thousand times more likely to die in a bicycle accident than in a shark attack.
Rays killed nearly 76 times more people (1,970 deaths) than sharks (26) between 1959 and 2010 off the US coast.
Since 2004, rip currents were responsible for 45 times more deaths than sharks.
Dogs killed more than five times as many people (349) as sharks (65) in the US between 2009 and 2018.
Inanimate objects have even killed more people than sharks.
In 1996, toilets injured 43,687 people, ladders injured 138,894 people, and 198,849 people were injured by nails, screws, tacks, and bolts.
By comparison, there were only 13 shark injuries and deaths during the same year.
Between 2000 and 2007, there were 441 hunting deaths, compared to seven shark bite deaths in the US and Canada.
These numbers are not meant to incite fear at the sight of dogs, toilets, or stairs, but rather to demonstrate how rare shark attacks are.
Has there been an increase in shark attacks?
California shark attack survivor released from hospital 1:23
Although the risk of being bitten by a shark remains extremely low, there was an increase in attacks in 2021, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
After three years of declines, the number of reported shark bites increased in 2021, with a total of 73 unprovoked incidents reported worldwide, according to a January 2022 report from the museum's International Shark Attack File.
The incidents included nine deaths worldwide, including one death in the US A surfer was killed in a shark attack in California on Christmas Eve last year.
NASA captures the eruption of an underwater volcano that is the strange home of two species of sharks
The figures are on par with the five-year international average of 72 annual attacks, but represent an increase from the 52 attacks reported in 2020, when Americans sheltered in their homes amid Covid-19 restrictions.
It's common to see annual fluctuations in human-shark interactions, and despite an increase in deaths in 2021, long-term trends show the number of annual deaths from shark bites is declining, according to the Shark Attack File.
The United States leads the world in the annual number of documented shark bites, with a total of 47 reported in 2021. Most of those attacks were in Florida, according to data compiled by the museum.
Surfers and paddleboarders made up more than half of reported shark bite victims.
Lowe said the increase can be attributed to climate change and rising temperatures bringing more people to the beach just as shark populations are recovering and possibly swimming closer to shore to feed.
“The country is warmer than ever.
And that will drive more people into the water than ever before, which just increases the likelihood that someone will be accidentally bitten."
Still, when you consider how many people are getting into the water, the chance of being attacked by a shark is very low.
We are not on your menu
Researchers don't know for sure why sharks sometimes bite people.
They may be doing this because they feel threatened and are just trying to defend themselves, Lowe said.
“The first thing that people need to remember is that it is the home of the shark, and we are guests in their home and quite often we are not good guests,” added the professor.
It is also possible that sharks sometimes mistake swimmers and surfers for food.
Sharks can see a hand or foot in the water and mistake it for a small fish.
A tiger shark or great white shark could even mistake a human for a seal or sea turtle.
Some attacks are "cases of mistaken identity," occurring in conditions of low water visibility, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
"People get bitten but rarely eaten, and that tells us we're not on the menu for sharks," Lowe explained.
The sharks just aren't interested in us.
Lowe and his team at Shark Lab have been using drones to study how sharks behave around humans along the California coast.
"After two years of looking at hundreds of hours of footage, basically our conclusion is that sharks ignore people," Lowe said.
Drone video from Shark Lab shows sharks swimming peacefully near unsuspecting paddleboarders, sometimes close enough for humans to lean in and touch them.
"People have been taught to fear sharks, thinking that if the shark is close, it's going to bite, and we know that's not true," Lowe said.
Still, shark attacks can happen on rare occasions, so it's good to remember that if you ever come across one, turn towards it so it knows you can see it, and back away slowly.
“The ocean is a wild place.
It's not Disneyland, your safety is not guaranteed," Lowe said.
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