Shark bites surfer at Florida's Volusia County beach: Why is it called the ‘shark bite capital of the world'?
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Why Volusia County is a hotspot for Shark bites
A surfer suffered a 'nasty' injury after a shark bit him on the foot in Florida's New Smyrna Beach on Friday, July 18, 2025. The bite marked the fourth shark encounter in Volusia County. The injury, however, was not a life-threatening one. An 18-year-old was surfing on the beach, also known as the 'Shark Bite Capital of the World.' It's in a Florida city notorious for shark encounters, where the incident took place.The unidentified teen, a surf instructor, according to local NBC affiliate WESH, was at New Smyrna Beach around 12 PM (local time) on July 18, 2025, when the encounter took place, Tamra Malphurs, director of the Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue, told local outlet FOX 35.Following the shark bite incident, the surf instructor was rushed to a local hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, Malphurs told FOX 35. The surfer's boss described the injury as 'nasty,' according to WESH. An anonymous eyewitness suggested that several first responders arrived on the scene of the attack, according to PEOPLE. This marks the fourth shark encounter in Florida's Volusia County so far this year, according to the county website.Two emergency vehicles and a police car arrived 'pretty quickly' after the surfer was bitten, the bystander told WESH. 'And some of the instructors came and got the lifeguard on the stand here and down.'New Smyrna Beach, a surfing hub south of Daytona Beach, is widely known as the 'Shark Bite Capital of the World,' according to WESH and The Daytona Beach News-Journal.Less than two weeks before the July 18 attack, a man identified as Matthew Bender was bitten by a shark while surfing in the Florida city, per FOX 35."I felt it clamp down like a bear trap out of nowhere," Bender told the outlet of the attack, which took place on July 6. 'By the time I looked down, it was already gone. I never saw the shark, but it bit really forcefully. It felt like electricity and like extreme pressure.'"And then I think it shook its head. I definitely felt that as it was letting go,' added Bender. 'It was also fast.'There have been 359 'unprovoked' shark attacks recorded in Volusia County since 1882, the most of any Florida county, according to the International Shark Attack File, the Florida Museum of Natural History's database. The next highest is Brevard County, with 159.Volusia County 'is conducive toward shark bites' due to a 'confluence of factors,' Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History's Florida Program for Shark Research, previously told The Daytona Beach News-Journal.Elaborating that there are also environmental factors like the nutrients in the region, Naylor told the newspaper in 2024, 'You need a bunch of sharks, and they need to be in the mood to bite things, and you need a bunch of people in the same area at the same time.'Sharks like blacktips and spinner sharks, which are also found in the area, 'are highly piscivorous,' the evolutionary biologist told The Daytona Beach News-Journal. Naylor further explained that their diet typically consists of fish, so when they bite a person, the reaction of the injured individual scares them away. 'If they were bull sharks or tiger sharks,' Naylor said, 'they might stick around a little bit more, and the injuries would be a lot worse.'
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