Using local human population numbers to compare the incidence of shark bites on the east and west coasts of Florida

In order for a comparison of shark bite numbers across locations to be meaningful, the locations must share a common feature or available statistic. One such statistic, which we called the “bite rate” in earlier projects, is the ratio between the human population and the number of bites within a giv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Florida scientist 2019-04, Vol.82 (2/3), p.82-94
Main Authors: Amin, Raid W, Ritter, Erich K, Bonell, Bethany A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal bites
Animal sciences
Beaches
Cluster analysis
Coasts
Computer software
Human populations
Identification
Local population
Marine biology
Marine ecology
Marine fishes
Population
Population number
Sharks
Shorelines
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Summary:In order for a comparison of shark bite numbers across locations to be meaningful, the locations must share a common feature or available statistic. One such statistic, which we called the “bite rate” in earlier projects, is the ratio between the human population and the number of bites within a given region. In the past, estimates of the total “beach population”—that is, the total number of individuals populating the beaches—for a given location throughout a year have served as the denominator for the purpose of calculating this ratio. However, such estimates are not always available, as is the case for regions within the United States, such as states that border the Gulf of Mexico including the west coast of Florida. In order to compensate for this gap in the data, we have been exploring the use of the “resident population” as a proxy for beach population numbers to determine bite rates. For the present study, we explored whether the two population values, beach population and resident population, are indeed interchangeable by analyzing the data for the east coast of Florida, for which both sets of population values are available. More specifically, we relied on SaTScan, a software package designed for geospatial cluster analysis, to determine whether the two data sets identified the same potential low- and high-significance clusters for bite rates. Next, we identified significance clusters for bite rates using resident population from Florida’s west coast, a region where beach population numbers were not available, and compared the results with the east coast. We found that, despite its longer shoreline, Florida’s west coast experienced a lower annual bite rate over the period of the study than the east coast. Several possible explanations are offered for these differences.
ISSN:0098-4590