Associated Press
Associated Press
HONOLULU — Hawaii officials plan to spend the next two years studying tiger shark movements around Maui amid what they call an unprecedented spike in overall shark attacks since the start of 2012.
Chairman William Aila of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources said Tuesday that Hawaii waters are safe if swimmers are cautious. However, he said prevailing opinion is that there are more sharks and more people in Hawaiian waters, creating more chances for bites.
“We know that the impression is that there is an inordinate amount of shark attacks that have happened recently,” Aila said. “We just want to make it clear that within the history of the state of Hawaii, the number of shark attacks have gone up, and they’ve gone down, and there have been some years we’ve actually had no shark attacks.
There have been eight attacks statewide this year and 10 in 2012. Hawaii usually sees only three to four attacks each year, and saw one or zero attacks in 11 years between 1980 and 2012, according to state data.