Oceanic Whitetip Shark - Relation To Humans

Relation To Humans

It is a commercially important species for its fins, its meat and oil. It is eaten fresh, smoked, dried and salted and its hide is used for leather. It is subject to fishing pressure throughout virtually its whole range—although it is more often taken as by-catch than by design, since it is drawn to longline bait that is intended for other species.

Famed oceanographic researcher Jacques Cousteau described the oceanic whitetip as "the most dangerous of all sharks". Despite the greater notoriety of the great white shark and other sharks habitually found nearer the shore, the oceanic whitetip is suspected to be responsible for many fatal attacks on humans, as a result of predation on survivors of shipwrecks or downed aircraft. Such incidents are not included in common shark-attack indices for the 20th and 21st centuries, and as a result of this, the oceanic whitetip does not have the highest number of recorded incidents; only 5 recorded attacks as of 2009. In one incident, the torpedoing of USS Indianapolis on 30 July 1945, oceanic whitetips are believed to be responsible for many of the attacks on sailors who survived the initial sinking, though most reportedly died from exposure to the elements rather than from shark attacks.

Also during World War II, the Nova Scotia, a steamship carrying approximately 1,000 people near South Africa, was sunk by a German submarine. With only 192 survivors, many deaths were attributed to the whitetip.