Saving Seafood

Man, 68, Bitten by Shark While Swimming Off North Carolina’s Outer Banks

July 1, 2015 — It’s still not safe to go in the water.

A 68-year-old man swimming off the North Carolina coast was attacked by a shark Wednesday and had to be flown to the hospital, authorities said.

The unidentified beachgoer was in just waist-deep water, about 30 feet from the shore along Ocracoke Island, when the shark bit him at midday, said National Park Service spokeswoman Cyndy Holda.

She said the man was bitten on his left lower torso, his hip, his lower left leg and both hands. He was treated at the scene and flown to Greenville, on the mainland. His condition wasn’t immediately known.

Read the full story at NBC News

 

Shark attacks have been on the rise this year. Why?

June 30, 2015 — If the number of shark bites along the North Carolina coast the past three weeks seems high, that’s because it is.

Six swimmers have been bitten recently, including two last week along the Outer Banks. The previous four cases were farther south near Wilmington. Two of those cases involved loss of limbs.

None of the victims has died.

But the number of incidents already is more than in all of 2014, when there were four recorded bites in North Carolina, according to the International Shark Attack File, a database compiled by the Florida Museum of Natural History.

“I definitely see this as an uptick,” said Jack Musick, a faculty emeritus shark and turtle expert with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “It seems like only one of those cases was an actual attack, whereas the others were just bites and the animal stopped.”

Musick said it is difficult to put together “environmental reasons” for the increase, but there are some factors in play.

“The water warmed up quicker this year, and that means more swimmers in the water than usual at this time of year,” he said. That could also lead to more turtles — a food source for sharks — closer to shore, he added.

“And the shark population is on the rise. It’s made a remarkable recovery since all of the over-fishing nearly wiped out many species.”

Read the full story at the Virginian-Pilot

 

North Carolina sees sixth shark attack in two weeks

June 28, 2015 — Officials say a 17-year-old boy is the latest victim of a shark attack off North Carolina’s coast, the second attack in as many days and the sixth attack in the past two weeks.

Rescue personnel and park rangers responded to the boy, who received what they described as injuries to his right calf, buttocks and both hands while swimming in the Outer Banks on Saturday, according to a post on the National Park Service’s Facebook page. The boy was swimming with others when he was bitten, but no one else was hurt, officials said.

The unidentified teenager was treated at the scene before being airlifted to a Norfolk, Virginia, hospital, the park service said.

Read the full story and watch the video from CBS News

 

North Carolina’s “Perfect Storm” for Shark Attacks

June 29, 2015 — There have been six shark attacks in North Carolina this year, all of them in June.

This is already more than last year, when the state saw four attacks. In the previous decade, there were only 25 shark attacks in North Carolina. And there have been just 55 documented shark attacks in the state between 1905 and 2014.

So what’s going on this year?

“It’s kind of a perfect storm,” says George H. Burgess, the director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Burgess says across the United States overall, shark attacks are on pace with an average year, and the chance of getting bit is still very low—an estimated one in 11.5 million for an ocean bather. But, he adds, “clearly, something is going on in North Carolina right now.”

Here’s why:

1. Warmer weather

Most shark attacks in North Carolina happen when the water reaches about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 Celsius), something that happened early this year, in April. Most sharks prefer warmer water, and the higher temperatures have drawn them in from farther south.

The warmer weather has also brought more people to the state’s beaches and entices them to take a dip to cool off. That makes more chances to run into sharks.

Read the full story at National Geographic

 

Another shark attack in North Carolina

June 26, 2015 — A shark attacked a person in North Carolina early Friday afternoon, CBS Affiliate Greensboro WFMY reports.

According to Avon Fishing Pier, the shark attacked a person about half a mile down the north side of the pier on Avon beach in Dare County. According to Avon Fishing Pier manager Keith Matthews, the call came in shortly before 12:30 p.m.

A witness posted a video to Twitter appearing to be after the incident.

Read the full story and watch the video at CBS News

 

Fourth shark attack in two weeks reported in North Carolina

June 23, 2015 — An eight-year-old boy suffered minor injuries after being bitten by a shark on Wednesday while swimming in knee-deep water in Surf City, North Carolina.

Town manager Larry Bergman says the town does not plan to warn visitors about the shark bite or tell swimmers to get out of the water, but it has increased police beach patrols.

The Surf City incident is the fourth shark bite in shallow water off a North Carolina beach in the past two weeks.

“It really comes down to a joint decision on public safety officials, including myself,” Bergman said. He said he would have decided to close the beaches “if there was a big hazard, if there was an imminent danger”.

The town does not have an official lifeguarding staff, instead employing police officers and water-rescue-trained firefighters to patrol the beaches on four-wheelers. Beachgoers swim “kind of at their own risk”, Bergman said.

Read the full story at The Guardian