About
Sources and method
This site exists because the information was scattered across county press releases, wire copy and a research file at a university museum. Here it is in one place, updated on a schedule.
Where the data comes from
Incidents are compiled from Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue incident reports, the International Shark Attack File maintained by the Florida Museum of Natural History, and contemporaneous local news reporting. Yearly totals follow the ISAF definition of an unprovoked bite.
How far back the record goes
The International Shark Attack File dates its record on this coast to 1882, but it only publishes a year-by-year count from 1960 onward. We show that distinction rather than hiding it: years with a published figure appear as individual years, and the decades before them appear as a bracketed span with no invented number attached.
The same restraint applies to the map. A dot is placed only where a bite was individually sourced and can be tied to a stretch of beach. Everything older is carried on the timeline beside the map as an annual count, because the file records that those bites happened without recording where along the shore. Two different kinds of knowledge, drawn two different ways.
One more thing worth knowing before comparing an old year with a new one: counts step up sharply after 1993, when ISAF established direct reporting with Volusia County lifeguards and emergency responders. Minor bites that had always occurred here began reaching the file for the first time. The change is largely in the record-keeping, not in the water.
How often it updates
The incident log is updated as reports are published. On the first of every month, a recap of the previous month is compiled and published automatically to the reports archive. Entries that have not yet been matched against a primary source are marked as awaiting verification.
What we do not publish
No names, no photographs of injuries, and no identifying details of anyone bitten. Age is recorded only as a band. These are people who had a bad afternoon at the beach, not public figures.
Corrections
If an entry is wrong, incomplete, or should not be here, we will fix or remove it. Accuracy matters more to us than volume.
The jaws mark
The jaws behind every page here were drawn by hand by Land n Sea NSB (@land_n_sea_nsb), an artist in New Smyrna Beach, commissioned exclusively for the dial of the NSB Watch Shark Bite. It is used here with her permission as the mark of this record. Please credit her if you reproduce it.