A vacationer attempting to {photograph} a shark in shallow water at a seashore 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, in accordance with the Turks and Caicos authorities, however its species was unclear.
The vacationer had “tried to interact with the animal” in an effort to take photos of it earlier than she was bitten on Feb. 7, the Division of Setting and Coastal Assets in Turks and Caicos stated in a press release.
Her id was not instantly launched, and officers didn’t describe the extent of her accidents.
The seashore was closed however reopened on Feb. 9 after the shark was discovered to have moved into deeper water, in accordance with the setting 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, consultants say. However sharks may cause extreme wounds once they mistake people for prey.
The world over, there have been 88 confirmed or potential shark bites logged final 12 months by the Worldwide Shark Assault File on the College of Florida, a company that tracks shark knowledge.
Twenty-four had been provoked, which means {that a} human had initiated contact with the shark, in accordance with the group. 4 individuals died from shark bites. One in all final 12 months’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 telephone 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 need 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 had been injured in what seemed to be a shark encounter in Bimini Bay within the northern Bahamas, in accordance with the Royal Bahamas Police Power.
Mr. Naylor stated two bites in at some point within the area was uncommon and made him “sit up just a little.”
However it was not clear whether or not there was any development. The variety of confirmed unprovoked shark bites dropped to 47 final 12 months, down from 69 the 12 months earlier than, in accordance with the Worldwide Shark Assault File.
