This series started with the simple question: Does it make sense to be concerned about encountering sharks while surfing in the U.S.?

Between 1959 and 2018 there were a recorded 4,074 recorded shark incidents around the world. The U.S. accounted for nearly half of those, (1,774 total.)

The U.S. has over 2x as many shark incidents as the nearest country, Australia.

With this information in hand, I would say if there is any place in the world to be concerned about encountering sharks, it would be the U.S.