Attack vs. incident: A case of semantics or political correctness?

According to Oxford Languages (Oxford University Press), an attack is an aggressive and violent action against a person or place, whereas incident* can be used to describe anything from a chance encounter to all-out war and everything in between. Although proponents of seemingly benign terms such as incident, interaction or negative encounter do present valid arguments, a shark bite, be it accidental, exploratory, defensive or predatory, is always an aggressive and violent action that occasionally results in death. Likewise, when a person accidentally kills another, it is called third-degree murder or manslaughter, which are far less conciliatory terms than the vague and exonerating incident, and even more sinister than the contentious attack.

What’s in a name?

While we share the significant concern that the word attack may inadvertently perpetuate the shark’s undue reputation as a man-eater, we nonetheless believe that it best describes the end result of such rare but brutal encounters with any toothed predator, no matter what the circumstances. We also hold that it is the right term for this database since passive encounters—which are much more frequent—are of lesser importance for education and prevention. We have nonetheless included suspected stalking incidents since they also present valuable insight into shark behaviour and risk assessment.

As mentioned in the preceding section on the danger posed by sharks, we believe that avoiding words depicting violence for the sake of conservation may lead to a false sense of assurance, indifference, and complacency. It is thus our opinion that public safety and awareness are better served by straightforward basic education on shark behaviour and distribution than by minimising the risk with politically correct and confusing terminology. If the goal of rebranding the shark’s comportment is to change public perception, we could also champion its usually non-belligerent nature with a new—and factual—idiom of improbability. Instead of as rare as hens’ teeth, why not as rare as a shark attack? In other words, as extraordinarily rare as they may be, shark attacks do in fact happen and they need to be called as such out of respect for the shark’s power and apparent sense of restraint.

“When a person accidentally kills another, it is called third-degree murder or manslaughter, which are far less conciliatory and more sinister terms than the vague and exonerating incident, which is nowadays used to describe a shark biting—and sometimes inadvertently killing—a human as an object of curiosity, a competitor, or a potential prey item.”

— Jeffrey Gallant, St. Lawrence Shark Observatory

Why do sharks bite?

Because sharks lack hands, they use their teeth to test potential food items, to outright feed, or fight. No one word—including attack—thus describes every type of shark bite or slash. They may be predatory, defensive, territorial, or exploratory, but many are quickly attributed to mistaken identity in order to whitewash the purported clumsy perpetrator. And yet, not all transgressing sharks may be as gaffe-prone as commonly believed¹.

The feeding preferences of sharks were determined long before the appearance of humans. After millions of years of evolution, many sharks are instinctively wired to travel long distances and congregate² at known—to them—foraging grounds where they seek out and recognise specific and safe prey items offering a high ratio of sustenance and not much of a fight, such as seals. In short, the shark must absorb more energy than it expends to hunt, feed and travel. Since the anatomical characteristics of humans usually don’t meet this basic requirement, people have thus never been part of any shark’s normal diet. This may partly explain why most sharks only bite or slash once before swimming away from an incapacitated and bleeding human victim. Is it because the shark realises that it has made a mistake, or could it be that it simply wanted to rout a perceived competitor impervious to its repeated warnings?

It has recently been suggested¹ that the still-developing visual skills of juvenile white sharks may cause them to mistakenly bite objects or people resembling their regular prey, namely pinnipeds. This should be of particular interest to residents and visitors to Atlantic Canada and the St. Lawrence where increasing numbers³ of young white sharks may be migrating every year. This is not believed to be the case with adult white sharks, who are five times fewer to cross the border into Canada than juveniles and sub-adults†, and whose highly tuned senses and experience may allow them to more easily recognise their prey except under the most adverse environmental conditions.

In short, not all shark incidents qualify as outright attacks. Some may be the result of an accidental bump in poor visibility, curiosity, or bad judgment. Likewise, it is difficult to determine whether a shark is stalking potential prey or merely being curious when no confrontation occurs. Or is a stalking shark being territorial and attempting to ward off a persistent yet oblivious intruder until an invisible line is crossed and a fight ensues? Whatever the situation, take heed: Benign incidents that appear over can quickly take a turn for the worse if the shark remains nearby and the perceived provocation, threat, or its interest in you does not cease. When in the presence of a shark getting too close for comfort, it is best to head back to your boat or the closest shore in order to avoid any incident, interaction, negative encounter, or even a rare bonafide attack.

Note: As independent researchers, we are not a governing authority on the terminology or lexicology of shark-related words and thus speak only for ourselves. Feel free to use whatever terms best reflect your own opinion when discussing sharks.

* Meanings of the term incident by Oxford Languages: (a) an event or occurrence, (b) a violent event, such as a fracas or assault, (c) a hostile clash between forces of rival countries, (d) a case or instance of something happening, (e) the occurrence of dangerous or exciting things.
† Dr. Heather D. Bowlby, Mr. Warren N. Joyce, Miss Megan V. Winton, Mr. Peterson Jacob Coates, and Greg Skomal. Conservation implications of white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) behaviour at the northern extent of their range in the Northwest Atlantic. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2021-0313
¹ Ryan LA et al. (2021). A shark’s eye view: testing the ‘mistaken identity theory’ behind shark bites on humans. J. R. Soc. Interface 18: 20210533. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0533
² Semmens, J., Payne, N., Huveneers, C. et al. (2013). Feeding requirements of white sharks may be higher than originally thought. Sci Rep 3, 1471. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep01471
³G. Bastien, A. Barkley, J. Chappus, V. Heath, S. Popov, R. Smith, T. Tran, S. Currier, D.C. Fernandez, P. Okpara, V. Owen, B. Franks, R. Hueter, D.J. Madigan, C. Fischer, B. McBride, and N.E. Hussey. (2020). Inconspicuous, recovering, or northward shift: status and management of the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) in Atlantic Canada. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 77(10): 1666-1677. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfas-2020-0055

Wabinmek ‘wa

On what is now Prince Edward Island circa 1731, a Mi’kmah shaman named Lkimu (a.k.a. Arguimaut) told of bad fish that devoured his people to Father Pierre-Antoine-Simon Maillard (1710-1762).

“They often travel at great risk, making considerable journeys with their bark canoes, like four, five, six, and sometimes seven leagues to go from one shore to another […] These are considerable journeys for us. Even if we make them in calm or good weather, the bad fish that often infest these seas do not allow us to travel without worry or fear. It happens all too often that this malicious spawn comes and attacks our canoes so suddenly from behind that it suddenly causes them to sink with those who are in them. Some who swim well escape the peril, but there are always some who fall prey to these carnivorous and extremely voracious fish. When we have time to see them bearing down on us, we immediately stop paddling so that we may take a wooden pole tipped with a very hard and pointy bone and stab, if we can, the animal, which, as soon as it feels injured, ceases to pursue for a little while. We take advantage of the brief respite to paddle with all our might, and if the animal returns, we repeat the same manoeuvre until we have reached shore. There is little we can do when two attack a canoe. When we happen to be without our spears and while shaking with fright, we throw from time to time pieces of meat or fish, if we have any, to distract the animal that pursues us, while the one who is in front of the canoe paddles slowly without stopping. When we have no more food to throw, we remove our furs; we often throw even our animal skin hats to our pursuers. Finally, when there is nothing more to throw away, we tie some of the sharpest and longest bones that we always carry in our canoes to the ends of our paddles, or else we join several arrows together, bringing the points very close to each other, and tie the bundle to the top end of a paddle or an oar with one of our belts. We then wait for the animal so we can stab it, which is not as easy as with the spear since the paddle is never long enough. However, we have often been able to make good use of this makeshift weapon. Finally, when we embark on a new journey, which is rare due to these formidable animals, we furbish the stern of our canoe with several leafy branches, which protrude approximately two feet above the rim. We know by experience that when these fish see and smell the foliage, they withdraw and do not approach, apparently believing this is a piece of land where they could become stranded.” [Translated by Jeffrey Gallant, ORS, 2022]

— Maillard, Antoine-Simon. (1863). Lettre de M. l’Abbé Maillard sur les missions de l’Acadie et particulièrement sur les missions micmaques. À Madame de Drucourt [1746], Les Soirées canadiennes, Québec, Brousseau et frères, vol. III, p. 289-426.

Some historians² have tentatively identified the much-feared ‘bad fish’ as the orca, Orcinus orca (a.k.a. killer whale), which remains to this day a rare resident of the Gulf. However, unless the orca’s well-documented and benevolent behaviour towards humans* was inexplicably different before there were written records, and because the natural prey of the orca, such as fish (North Atlantic Type 1 orca) and marine mammals (North Atlantic Type 2 orca), were highly abundant during prehistory, it is our determination that the attacker was more likely the white shark. As further evidence, we have been unable to find a recorded Mi’kmaw term for orca, while there exist several words for shark, including the aforementioned name of the white shark, wabinmek ‘wa. If the orca was in fact the ‘bad fish’ that terrified and predictably killed native seafarers for up to 5,000 years, one would presume that it would have a name and still take the odd bite…