Researchers would later chalk it up to especially warm water off the coast of North Carolina during that summer in 2015, or, in some cases, to an unusual distribution of tasty fish, or to the fact that more people went to the beach that year. Whatever it was, one thing was clear: the sharks were out, and they seemed to be nipping people at a higher rate than usual.
Curious about it, Midway, an oceanography professor at Louisiana State University, decided to partner with scientists at the University of Florida to embark on a research project to figure out if the seemingly rising number of shark bites were statistically important. It started as a question local to the US but morphed into a project that is the first of its kind to look at shark attacks on a global level across a half-century.
Comment: Also pertinent is this recent January 2019 report which again points to an increasing trend in attacks: Fisherman killed by shark off Réunion Island - 23rd attack since 2011, with 10 fatalities
The above report is perhaps even more noteworthy because the large number of attacks that occurred were off a small island within a relatively short time frame.