page_title: Oceanic whitetip shark
section_title: Relationship with humans
hierarchical_section_title: Oceanic whitetip shark / Relationship with humans
caption_attribution_description: English: Oceanic whitetip shark at Elphinstone Reef
context_page_description: The oceanic whitetip shark, also known as Brown Milbert's sand bar shark, brown shark, lesser white shark, nigano shark, oceanic white-tipped whaler, and silvertip shark, is a large pelagic requiem shark inhabiting tropical and warm temperate seas. Its stocky body is most notable for its long, white-tipped, rounded fins.
  Though slow-moving, they are opportunistic and aggressive, and are reputed to be dangerous to shipwreck survivors. Recent studies show steeply declining populations because its large fins are highly valued as the chief ingredient of shark fin soup, and as with other shark species, the whitetip faces mounting fishing pressure throughout its range.
context_section_description: The oceanic whitetip is a commercially important species for its fins, meat, and oil. It is eaten fresh, smoked, dried, and salted and its hide is used for leather. It is subject to fishing pressure throughout virtually its whole range,although it is more often taken as bycatch than by design, since it is drawn to longline bait that is intended for other species.
  Oceanographic researcher Jacques Cousteau described the oceanic whitetip as "the most dangerous of all sharks". Despite the greater notoriety of the great white shark and other sharks habitually found nearer the shore, the oceanic whitetip is suspected to be responsible for many fatal shark bites on humans, as a result of predation on survivors of shipwrecks or downed aircraft. Such incidents are not included in common shark-bite indices for the 20th and 21st centuries, and as a result, the oceanic whitetip does not have the highest number of recorded incidents; only five bites had been recorded as of 2009.
  After the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed on 30 July 1945, most sailors who survived the sinking reportedly died from exposure to the elements rather than from shark bites. However, according to survivor accounts published in several books about sharks and shark attacks, potentially hundreds of the Indianapolis crew were killed by sharks before a plane spotted them on the 5th day after the sinking. Oceanic whitetips are believed to have been responsible for most if not all of those attacks. Also during World War II, the RMS Nova Scotia, a steamship carrying about 1,000 people near South Africa, was sunk by a German submarine. One hundred and ninety-two people survived; many deaths were attributed to the whitetip.
  In Egypt in 2010, one oceanic whitetip was implicated in several bites on tourists in the Red Sea near Sharm El Sheikh. The shark was recognised individually by the bite mark taken out of its upper tail lobe. Accumulating evidence revealed this shark to have been conditioned to being hand fed. Upon associating the divers with an easy supply of food, it bit the divers and snorkelers on the areas of the body where it had seen the fish being kept, namely, in the fanny packs the divers carried. This caused the shark to target the divers' buttock and thigh regions in the hope of obtaining a meal. The 2010 Sharm El Sheikh bites resulted in one death and four injuries to humans. The attacks might have been instigated by the overfishing in that area of the Red Sea, effectively forcing the shark closer to shore where the bites took place.
caption: Oceanic whitetip with a rusty fish hook in its mouth
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