Surfing star Laird Hamilton said shark attacks are more likely to happen to women on their periods, which is not true, during an impromptu interview with TMZ on Wednesday.
Hamilton did make it clear sharks don’t normally go after humans, citing well-known statistics that soda machines and lightning kill more people every year than are even bitten by a shark.
“Most shark attacks are not fatal. It’s usually a mistaken identity,” Hamilton told TMZ.
But maybe he should have stopped while he was ahead. As the interview continued, Hamilton offered a different theory about why shark attacks happen.
“The biggest, most common reason to be bitten is a woman with her period, which people don’t even think about that,” he said. “Obviously, if a woman has her period, then there’s a certain amount of blood in the water.”
HuffPost pointed out that women lose less than 2 ounces of blood during a weeklong menstrual period, on average.
Chris Lowe, a Cal State shark researcher, told HuffPost it was a “misconception” that menstruation draws sharks, and that the blood loss is “probably less than the average scrape or cut” a person might have while in the water.
“The bottom line is it takes a lot more than just a little blood to get a shark’s attention,” Lowe added.
Shark behavior expert Ralph S. Collier found in his research that menstrual blood did not attract sharks, HuffPost noted; in fact, only abdominal cavity fluids got any reaction from the sharks in his studies.
Twitter wasn’t quite sure how to react to Hamilton's shark attack theory.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.