How many people die from falling coconuts?
Updated: May 3, 2025
When visiting Hawaii or another tropical location, some friends will warn you to watchout for falling coconuts. You may have even heard the saying -
“You are more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than by a shark”.
You may have even repeated it. Though fun to say, the time has come to debunk this utterly wrong and long standing myth because, it simply is not true. It's origin story however is interesting, lets dive in.
First off lets expose the lie by simply glancing at the score board. Hawaiian newspapers emerged shortly after the arrival of the first pacific printing press in 1821, and they’ve kept a pretty good record of un-timely deaths. These papers act as important record for much of Hawaii’s recent history. According to them, in the last 200 years, Hawaiian sharks have introduced only ten people to their makers. Ten seems like a suspiciously low number to me and there’s good reason to raise your eyebrow. Shark attacks don’t exactly help the tourism industry and many, even to this day, conveniently don’t make the paper. But whats even lower are incidences a coconut tree has requested human sacrifice. The running total - two.
That’s right.
Sharks - 10
Coconuts - 2
So where exactly did the idea that coconuts kill more people than sharks arise from? Its origin can be traced back to 2001 and a man with a motive. George Burgess, shark researcher at the University of Florida, and the director of the international shark attack file. George had been asked to speak at a NOAA sponsored press conference. 2001 had been a bad year for sharks. A series of east coast attacks had stirred a media frenzy (pardon the pun) and the public was seriously frightened.
For George, NOAA and the sharks, the timing couldn’t have been worse. 2002 was set to be the inaugural year of the shark finning prohibition act, public support was needed and those darn sharks biting peoples legs off weren’t exactly helping.
So like a good politician, George decided someone had to get pushed under the bus. At the press conference Burgress (who later admitted that he had never fact checked the statistic) told reporters “Falling coconuts kill a hundred and fifty people worldwide each year, fifteen times the number of fatalities attributable to sharks”. The media loved it, the press re-ran the quote all over and the public mind has has been deeply ingrained with an unnecessary fear of falling coconuts ever since. Sadly today most homeowners in Hawaii prefer to neuter their trees (cut all the young flowers from the tree before they mature) so no fruit sets, meaning there are no coconuts to eat.
The truth is, these days in Hawaii -
"You are MUCH more likely to die from a shark, then from a falling coconut”
It doesnt help the tourism industry, but that's the honest truth.
Need help getting over your fear of falling coconuts? Take our online coconut cooking class. 100% totally free and learn why coconuts have more reason to be afraid of you, then you of them. You can also visit us in person and take a farm tour while on Maui.
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I had no idea the whole "coconuts kill more people than sharks" thing was traceably started by George Burgess during a 2001 press conference! It is fascinating how an unverified figure just took off and became an accepted urban legend worldwide. Reminds me of how fast unsourced statistics spread online even when I was looking into services offering Assignment Help for University Students Australia for a research project, verifying original references turned out to be the hardest part. It makes you wonder how many other common "facts" we repeat every day are actually total fabrications crafted for PR. Brilliant read, definitely going to stop repeating this one!
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