Sources and Data Provenance
Shark Incidents combines public source research with its own reviewed incident records. The source used to discover an event is not necessarily the same source used to verify it.
Every incident page should identify the sources that support its core facts.
Primary authorities
When available, primary public authorities are preferred for the basic facts of a developing event. These can include:
- beach and lifeguard authorities;
- coast guards and maritime rescue agencies;
- police and emergency services;
- relevant local, state or national government agencies.
A primary source is especially useful for confirming that an event occurred, when it occurred and the general location.
Professional news reporting
Reliable local reporting is valuable for current incidents because reporters frequently quote the officials who responded to the event and publish follow-up corrections.
Shark Incidents stores source URLs and writes its own factual summaries. It does not copy full news articles or republish publisher photographs without a separate license.
Multiple copies of the same syndicated story are treated as one information lineage rather than independent corroboration.
Specialist shark-incident sources
Specialist shark-incident projects can provide important investigated historical context.
Their information is still subject to copyright, database and access terms. Shark Incidents does not assume that a publicly viewable specialist database can be downloaded and commercially mirrored.
Where a specialist source is used to support a record, the incident page links to the public reference where possible and summarizes only the facts needed for the independent Shark Incidents record.
International Shark Attack File
The International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum is an important scientific reference for definitions and published aggregate annual statistics.
Its public annual summaries can be cited for aggregate context. The site must not attempt to scrape restricted detailed case records that are not publicly licensed for bulk republication.
Global Shark Attack File
GSAF can be used as a research/reference source subject to its current terms. Its bulk incident material must not be mirrored or commercially republished without the required permission.
Any future bulk importer must remain disabled unless the site owner has documented permission.
GDELT
GDELT can be used as a discovery layer for potential new reports. Discovery output is not treated as fact.
The classic GDELT Project states that its released datasets are available for unrestricted academic, commercial and governmental use, with citation when redistributed. Any separate GDELT Cloud product has its own current terms and must be treated separately.
WoRMS
The World Register of Marine Species is used to normalize scientific names, synonyms and accepted taxonomy where appropriate.
OBIS
OBIS can provide species-occurrence context, not shark-incident records or risk predictions.
Licensing must be checked at the underlying dataset level. OBIS includes CC0 and CC BY data suitable for commercial use with the required attribution, but it also includes non-commercial datasets that must not be incorporated into a monetized product without permission.
NOAA and other marine-science sources
NOAA and comparable public scientific agencies can provide species, fisheries and oceanographic context. Any environmental value displayed near an incident—for example sea-surface temperature—must be labeled as context rather than a claimed cause of the incident.
Images
Images are stored locally only when the license permits the intended use. Attribution and license metadata are recorded for every non-original image.
The site does not hotlink news photographs.
Source corrections
A source can disappear, change or be corrected. The system should retain the source URL, retrieval timestamp and enough provenance to understand why a record was published. Broken links should be checked periodically and archived links may be added when lawful and appropriate.
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