A vacationer making an attempt to {photograph} a shark in shallow water at a seaside within the Turks and Caicos Islands this month was bitten by it and flown off the island to obtain medical care, the native authorities stated.
The vacationer was handled at a hospital earlier than she left the island, Providenciales, a sandy, 38-square-mile magnet for snorkelers and solar seekers that’s ringed by turquoise waters.
The shark was about six ft lengthy, based on the Turks and Caicos authorities, however its species was unclear.
The vacationer had “tried to have interaction with the animal” in an effort to take footage of it earlier than she was bitten on Feb. 7, the Division of Atmosphere and Coastal Assets in Turks and Caicos stated in an announcement.
Her identification was not instantly launched, and officers didn’t describe the extent of her accidents.
The seaside was closed however reopened on Feb. 9 after the shark was discovered to have moved into deeper water, based on the atmosphere division. Turks and Caicos, an archipelago, is a British territory and one of many Caribbean’s fanciest vacationer locations.
Shark bites are extraordinarily uncommon and are sometimes accidents, specialists say. However sharks may cause extreme wounds after they mistake people for prey.
Internationally, there have been 88 confirmed or potential shark bites logged final yr by the Worldwide Shark Assault File on the College of Florida, a company that tracks shark information.
Twenty-four have been provoked, which means {that a} human had initiated contact with the shark, based on the group. 4 individuals died from shark bites. Certainly one of final yr’s recorded bites was in Turks and Caicos; it was not deadly.
The file’s director, Gavin Naylor, stated on Saturday that it was too quickly to say if this month’s chunk in Turks and Caicos was provoked or unprovoked.
However Chris Stefanou, a New York fisherman and conservationist who tags sharks, stated that photographing sharks can carry dangers, and that the shark may need confused a cellphone for a fish.
“Sharks, or any predatory animal within the ocean, can confuse that as like a bait fish,” Mr. Stefanou stated, referring to small, shiny fish that draw sharks to shore. “The shark didn’t simply see a human: ‘Ooh, I’m hungry, I wish to go take a chunk.’ That didn’t occur.”
The episode was not the one reported shark chunk within the Caribbean on Feb. 7. Two People have been injured in what gave the impression to be a shark encounter in Bimini Bay within the northern Bahamas, based on the Royal Bahamas Police Power.
Mr. Naylor stated two bites in sooner or later within the area was uncommon and made him “sit up somewhat.”
But it surely was not clear whether or not there was any pattern. The variety of confirmed unprovoked shark bites dropped to 47 final yr, down from 69 the yr earlier than, based on the Worldwide Shark Assault File.
