NSB Shark Bite

Statistics

Bites per year

Volusia County has led the world in unprovoked shark bites for most of the last three decades, and the overwhelming majority of those bites happen in the two miles of surf around Ponce Inlet at New Smyrna Beach.

389

Volusia County — all years

Published annual series, 1960–2026

352

New Smyrna Beach — all years

90% of the county record · 7 years stated outright by an authority

5.8

County average per year

22

Peak county year — 2001

How the New Smyrna Beach figure is arrived at. Authorities publish at county level. In 7 years a source named New Smyrna Beach and gave a number outright, and we use that number. For every other year we take the county count of record and subtract only the bites a source explicitly places at Daytona Beach, Daytona Beach Shores or Ormond Beach — the rest happened in the surf beside Ponce Inlet at New Smyrna Beach, which the International Shark Attack File has described for decades as the most bite-prone stretch of coastline on the planet. Every year below says which of the two it is. Volusia County alone accounted for 135 of the 639 shark bites recorded worldwide between 1999 and 2008.

Unprovoked bites by year

The pale bar is the Volusia County count of record. The solid bar inside it is New Smyrna Beach. A dot beside the year marks a figure an authority stated for this town outright; every other year is the county figure less the bites explicitly reported at Daytona Beach, Daytona Beach Shores or Ormond Beach.

Volusia County count of record New Smyrna Beach Stated for the town by an authority

New Smyrna Beach and Volusia County are not the same number. Volusia County Beach Safety and the International Shark Attack File publish at county level — a figure that also includes Ponce Inlet, Daytona Beach Shores, Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach. The overwhelming majority happen in the surf beside Ponce Inlet at New Smyrna Beach, and the town figure here reflects that — but where a source puts a bite at one of the other towns, it is taken out.

Individual bites, with the reporting behind each one, are in our incident log. Because most bites here are minor and treated locally, the log runs behind the official tallies, and the current year stays provisional until the annual report from the International Shark Attack File lands.

Before the annual series

The record on this coast is far older than the numbers above. These are the spans it covers without ever publishing a figure for each year — shown as they are, rather than split into counts nobody ever counted.

1882–1959The record opensNo published figure
The International Shark Attack File dates its Volusia County record to 1882, but publishes no year-by-year series before 1960. Bites from this period exist in the file; they are not broken out by year or by beach, so no annual figure is shown here.
1960–1993Before the county reporting linkNo published figure
ISAF counts for these years are real but undercounted. Minor bites were rarely passed on to the file until 1994, when ISAF established direct reporting with Volusia County lifeguards and emergency responders — which is why the numbers step up sharply after 1993.

How to read these numbers

A high count here does not mean the water is dangerous — it means it is crowded. Volusia County counts millions of beachgoer-days per year against roughly ten bites, nearly all of them minor lacerations to a hand or foot. There has never been a recorded fatality at New Smyrna Beach.

Bites cluster hard in late summer and early fall, when water temperatures peak, bait fish run the beach, and surf crowds are at their largest.

The long climb after 1993 is mostly a change in record-keeping, not in sharks. From 1994 the International Shark Attack File began receiving Volusia County lifeguard and emergency-responder reports directly, so the minor bites that had always happened here started reaching the file. Compare a 1970s year with a 2010s year and you are largely comparing two different reporting systems.