page_title: Bull shark
section_title: Interactions with humans
hierarchical_section_title: Bull shark / Behavior / Interactions with humans
caption_attribution_description: This Bull shark is (was) a frequent visitor from Walkers Cay Bahama's
context_page_description: The bull shark, also known as the "Zambezi shark" in Africa, and "Lake Nicaragua shark" in Nicaragua, is a requiem shark commonly found worldwide in warm, shallow waters along coasts and in rivers. It is known for its aggressive nature, and presence in warm, shallow brackish and freshwater systems including estuaries and rivers.
  Bull sharks can thrive in both salt and fresh water and can travel far up rivers. They have been known to travel up the Mississippi River as far as Alton, Illinois, about 700 miles from the ocean. However, few freshwater human-shark interactions have been recorded. Larger-sized bull sharks are probably responsible for the majority of near-shore shark attacks, including many bites attributed to other species.
  Unlike the river sharks of the genus Glyphis, bull sharks are not true freshwater sharks, despite their ability to survive in freshwater habitats.
context_section_description: Since bull sharks often dwell in very shallow waters, are found in many types of habitats, are territorial by nature, and have no tolerance for provocation, they may be more dangerous to humans than any other species of shark. Along with the tiger shark and great white shark, bull sharks are among the three shark species most likely to bite humans.
  One or several bull sharks may have been responsible for the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, which were the inspiration for Peter Benchley's novel Jaws. The speculation of bull sharks possibly being responsible is based on two fatal bites occurring in brackish and fresh water.
  Bull sharks have attacked swimmers around the Sydney Harbour inlets. In India, bull sharks swim up the Ganges River and have bitten bathers. Many of these bite incidents were attributed to the Ganges shark, Glyphis gangeticus, a critically endangered river shark species, although the sand tiger shark was also blamed during the 1960s and 1970s.
  The bull shark prefers coastal water, which is less than 100 feet in depth. This is mostly due to their feeding patterns, since they prefer murky waters. This is also a problem, since this gives them the most interaction with humans. It is known that bull sharks inhabit areas off the coast of Florida, and there have been reports of bull sharks getting close enough to the coast to bite humans, since the bull shark is a territorial animal, which encourages aggressive behavior.
caption: Bull shark (Bahamas)
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