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Hawaiian Tiger Shark Study Seeks To Explain Bites Off Maui

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 08:22 PST, May 20, 2016

A new study released this week has shed fresh light on the habits of tiger sharks off the Hawaiian island of Maui, potentially explaining the increased incidences of encounters between the animals and beachgoers in recent years.

The waters around Maui are home to a vibrant tiger shark population, as U.S. News and World Report notes, and the island is noted for a higher number of shark bites than any of the other Hawaiian islands. In 2012 and 2013, those incidents spiked, spurring the state of Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources to commission the two-year-long study, which was principally conducted by Carl Meyer, assistant researcher at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.

Meyer and his compatriots conducted the study by tagging tiger sharks off Maui and Oahu, as the Inquisitr previously reported, and then tracking their movements. The researchers found that the tiger sharks preferred to spend their time in the waters surrounding Maui, Lanai, Molokai, and Kahoolawe islands. While the population of sharks centered around Maui tended to stay there, the Oahu population was drawn to the area intermittently, particularly during the height of mating season.

The ocean around Maui is rich with coral reefs and habitat that draws prey fish and other marine life, which in turn attracts the tiger sharks. Maui and its neighboring islands are home to more shark-friendly habitat than all of the other Hawaiian islands combined, as Maui Now notes, which makes it somewhat unsurprising that tiger sharks would take up permanent residence there.

The researchers note that shark behavior hasn’t changed in recent years, though human behavior in the region has. Bruce Anderson, administrator of the state Division of Aquatic Resources, pointed out that an increasing number of people are taking up ocean-based sports like spearfishing, kayaking, and stand-up paddleboarding. With far more people entering the water, it is only natural that the number of interactions between humans and the local tiger shark population would also be on the rise.

Those increases seemed dramatic in 2012 and 2013, when there were six and eight tiger shark attacks (respectively) reported in Maui. In the ensuing years, however, the number of incidents have dropped sharply. In 2014, only five shark attacks were reported, marking a slowdown that became even more drastic in 2015, when just one shark attack was documented near the island.

While last year was an unusually quiet one for shark interactions, Meyer noted that he still expects the general trend to continue in a gradually increasing direction over time, due to a variety of factors.

“The ingredients that have gone into a general upward trend in the number of shark bites in Hawaii, and other places around the world, are mainly more people in coastal areas going into the ocean and doing a wider array of ocean recreational activities.”

Officials note that beachgoers must be aware of the potential dangers when they enter the ocean, particularly in waters like those around Maui, which sharks are well known to frequent. Anderson pointed out that swimming in the ocean is tantamount to entering a “wilderness environment,” and that the local tiger shark population is a part of that environment.

“We have to accept that they’re there and take precautions to avoid encounters, which are going to occur from time to time.”

Anderson further noted that the state plans to increase its educational outreach in regard to the sharks, following the study results. Meyer, meanwhile, plans to submit the results of his two-year-long study of Maui’s tiger shark population to a yet-to-be named scientific journal for peer review.

[Photo by Albert Kok – Own Work via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and Resized | CC BY-SA 3.0]

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