Great Hammerhead - Human Interactions

Human Interactions

With its large size and cutting teeth, the great hammerhead is certainly capable of inflicting fatal injuries to a human and caution should be exercised around them. This species has a (possibly undeserved) reputation for aggression and being the most dangerous of the hammerhead sharks. Divers underwater have reported that great hammerheads tend to be shy or unreactive to humans. However, there are reports of great hammerheads approaching divers closely and even charging them when they first enter the water. As of 2009, the International Shark Attack File lists 34 attacks, 17 of them unprovoked and 1 fatal, attributable to hammerhead sharks of the genus Sphyrna. Due to the difficulty in identifying the species involved, it is uncertain how many were caused by great hammerheads. This shark has been confirmed to be responsible for only one (provoked) attack.

The great hammerhead is regularly caught both commercially and recreationally in the tropics, using longlines, fixed bottom nets, hook-and-line, and trawls. Though the meat is rarely consumed, their fins are becoming increasing valuable due to the Asian demand for shark fin soup. In addition, their skin used for leather, their liver oil for vitamins, and their carcasses for fishmeal. The great hammerhead is also taken unintentionally as bycatch and suffers very high mortality, over 90% for fisheries in the northwest Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Entanglement in shark nets around Australian and South African beaches is another source of mortality.