Shark expert answers our questions: 'We are not their food'

One of the ocean's fiercest predators swims right into Sebastian Inlet and other ocean openings to the Indian River Lagoon.

When inside the lagoon, the bulls are all mamma shark and no bite, just wanting to get birth over with. There's no bull shark attacks in the lagoon on record. But the large predator's presence in the lagoon still makes some wonder: Could a mad mamma bull one day come after me?

So FLORIDA TODAY put that and some other shark questions to expert Toby Daly-Engel, an assistant professor and shark researcher at Florida Institute of Technology and director of FIT's Shark Conservation Lab.

Here's what she had to say:

Q: How are sharks doing locally?

A: In general, sharks are not doing well. Over 70% of all sharks have disappeared over the past 50 years. (The reasons, she added, include overfishing, habitat loss and climate change, but 45% of shark species are 'data deficient,' so scientists don't know. More than a third are threatened with extinction.)

Q: Bull sharks use the Indian River Lagoon to give birth to their pups. Is there any danger to people in the water? Are the bull sharks in the lagoon aggressive? How big do they tend to be? Because it’s a nursery, are the pregnant females more or less aggressive?

They're all very, very skittish. Sharks are very, very cautious animals.

The mothers, when they come in, they don't eat.

(Most bull sharks in the lagoon are only about two-feet long, she added. Pregnant females swim into the inlets to give birth to their pups in the lagoon, but they only stay a few hours, don't feed while there, and there's never been an attack in the lagoon, she added.)

Nobody's ever been bitten by a big bull shark in the IRL, they don't feed.

They're not hunger-ridden. They're opportunistic. They'd rather scavenge something dead.

They're more like wolves, very cautious.

Q: What about shark deterrents such as the wrist bands that go around the ankles or wrists that put out electromagnetic fields to spook sharks away, do they work?

'No' is the short answer. If they make people feel less scared, then you can say, 'yes' they work, but 'no' they don't deter sharks.

(She said different types of metals have been tried to ward off sharks, trying to tap into their electro-sensing capabilities.)

Some species are definitely put off by those type of metals, others are attracted to them.

Q: What can people do to lower risk if they are in the water and a shark is nearby to make them safer?

Moving calmly. They're very cautious animals. Don't act like a struggling fish. Don't act like prey.

Contact Waymer at (321) 261-5903 or [email protected]. Follow him on X (Twitter) at @JWayEnviro.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Shark Q&A with expert at Florida Tech: How to stay safe