When visiting a beach, it's likely that sharks will be on your mind at some point. Sharks have become a huge fear for people especially since the Jaws movies came out back in the 70's and back then, that's how people got their information by watching movies. Now days we are more knowledgeable about how sharks are not these man-eaters that they were once thought to be before humans became more educated on the topic.

There are sharks that inhabit all saltwater areas in Orange County including harbors. Most of these sharks in the harbors are small sharks that pose no dangers to humans but along the beaches, there are larger sharks that can be dangerous to humans although attacks are extremely rare. The sharks that can be dangerous to humans here are great whites and makos. While these species are likely to inhabit the coastlines here, most go undetected because they don't have any interest in humans. When sharks bite humans, we know it's always investigative which means sharks are not seeking out humans as a food source but rather "checking us out." Sharks don't have hands or any other way to investigate things and most of the time, the water is very murky here. When a shark bites a human to investigate what we are, this can break bones easily but after they realize what we are, they will typically swim away.

If you find yourself under attack from a shark, the best thing you can do is to not panic and fight back. Sharks are used to chasing after prey so if you don't panic, the shark will lose interest. If you watch videos of people in the water with great whites and tiger sharks, you will notice the people are always facing the shark and never panicking. If the shark feels like its life is in danger because you punched the shark, it will also swim away because it won't want to be injured. An injured shark can mean a death sentence for them so they won't risk that.