Fight A Shark: The Rebuttal

Friends, Romans, and Countrymen. Lend me your ears, and I'll sing you a song. And unlike some YouTube sensations, I won't sing out of key. You too can get by with a little help from me, your friend, if you heed my words. You may have heard about the raging debate going on the past few weeks. The question was whether or not it is better or not to fight a shark or a crocodile. Hopefully your first instinct is, "No question, keep the shark away from me and bring on the crocodile." Some of you, such as a certain Austin Crezee may think it over and reason with yourself that you'd rather fight a crocodile than a shark. There's even some of you who may think, "You know what, sharks are big wussies. I can take one." To both those camps, I tell you that you are wrong. Let me explain why.



1. No Matter How Fast You Can Swim, You Are Not a Faster Swimmer Than a Shark
 This is an argument I hear a lot, especially from people who consider themselves strong swimmers. Let me explain why this is a terrible notion to have. I will now tell you a story. Billy was a boy who loved to swim. Every day, he would go out to the pool and swim lap after lap. He soon got to be fairly quick and joined the swim team in high school. There, Billy won the hearts of all the swimmers on his team winning a state championship and breaking school records. Women wanted to be with Billy and men wanted to be like Billy. He was at the pinnacle of popularity. Soon he attended the Olympics and won countless gold medals in every swimming event. To celebrate he decided to go swimming in the ocean. There, he encountered a Great White Shark. No matter, thought Billy. I am a strong fast swimmer. I can swim away from this beast. 

Twelve seconds later, Billy was devoured. By a shark.
You see, sharks can swim much faster than us humans. Much faster. But Zach, I'm a great swimmer! I've got the swimming merit badge! I've got a letter from high school in swimming! Of course I can outswim a shark!

No you can't, you silly readers. 

The average human swimmer can swim about 3.5 miles per hour. That's a walking pace. Imagine yourself walking away from a Great White shark. Exactly, you can't. It's a ridiculous thought because when you're in danger, you don't walk away. You run as fast as you can and then you run a little bit faster. Then you move to Kansas or Colorado where sharks are nothing but a myth and you deal with more normal creatures, like hipsters and hooligans. It's even crazier when you realize that not even world class swimmers such as Michael Phelps would be able to avoid a shark. Michael Phelps swims at roughly 5 miles per hour. A shark swims at an average of 25 miles per hour. Keep in mind also, what the meaning behind those averages are. Phelps swims that fast in dead sprints. Over longer distances, he's still faster than the average normal person, but much slower. Sharks swim 25 miles per hour as just their normal pace. Imagine how fast a trained shark would be in a dead sprint. A trained shark would straight up dominate any Olympic swimming race. Also on that thought, start training sharks, people who know things. That would be sweet.

I say we put the shark in Lochte's lane.

2. It's easier to avoid a crocodile 

Crocodiles are actually fast in a water and decently quick on land. I won't dispute that. And, a shark can't follow you onto land in the extremely unlikely event that you somehow make it to shore. A crocodile can. But here's the thing: they don't follow you. Scientists have proved that crocodiles really prefer being in the water to be on land. They're also lazy hunters. They hide underwater and wait for someone to come close, then they bite. They love to ambush. If they begin to chase you, they usually give up within 20 feet of the river. They get tired after only a few feet of running Seriously. You make it 20 feet away from the river, and they will 99% of the time stop, turn around, and take their talents back to South Beach. They are the LeBron James of reptiles.

Hey Cleveland, come here for a sec. No seriously, just for a sec.

 There is a myth that crocodiles can't run in zigzag patterns. That's actually false. They can run fine in zigzag patterns, it's straight lines they have issues with. A crocodile can only run at top speeds of just about 10 miles per hour. The average person can sustain a speed of 15 miles per hour for 50 meters, which is more than enough to outrun a crocodile.

You may have also heard that a crocodile can bite really really really hard. This is true. They have the largest bite force of any living animal on the Earth that we know of. That's pretty freaking hard. But, what's slightly less unknown is this interesting fact... It's incredibly easy to avoid a crocodile bite if you're alert to it, and then to hold its mouth shut. You see, the same insane muscles that allow a crocodile to bite harder than Mike Tyson are also its downfall. The jaw muscles of a croc are weaker than you'd expect. A croc bite is all about the technique. But since those muscles are so small and weak, once the mouth is closed you just wrap your hands around the snout and squeeze. There is no way the croc will break free. It's actually such a good technique that you can even just use a large rubber band or electrical tape to hold it closed just as well. Remember how easy it is to snap a rubber band in half? A crocodile can't even fight back against that. That's about as anticlimactic as the ending to Mass Effect 3.

3. Name a Scary Crocodile Movie

There isn't one. Meanwhile in the other corner, we have Jaws. That's right. I thought so.