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LiveScience
LiveScience
Chris Simms

Shark attacks in Hawaii spike in October, and scientists think they know why

Three tiger sharks ( Galeocerdo cuvier ) North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii, USA ( Central Pacific Ocean ).

"Sharktober" — the spike in shark bite incidents off the west coast of North America during the fall — is real, and it seems to happen in Hawaii when tiger sharks give birth in the waters surrounding the islands, new research suggests.

Carl Meyer, a marine biologist at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa's Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, analyzed 30 years' worth of Hawaii shark bite data, from1995 to 2024, and found that tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) accounted for 47% of the 165 unprovoked bites recorded in the area during that period. Of the others, 33% were by unidentified species and 16% were attributed to requiem sharks (Carcharhinus spp.)

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