Yahoo Finance ‘Extremely rare’ New York shark attack critically injures swimmer
A 65-year-old woman has been left critically injured after a shark attack at one of New York’s most popular beaches.
On Tuesday, officials closed Rockaway Beach for swimming and surfing after the woman was bitten on the left leg while out in the water.
She was named locally as Tatyana Koltunyuk, who lives nearby and visits the beach five days a week, the New York Post reported.
Police attempted to reassure locals and holidaymakers that attacks from New York’s resident tiger sharks are “extremely rare”, but numbers have increased in recent years.
The woman was pulled from the water by lifeguards at around 6pm on Monday evening, before being taken to Jamaica Hospital.
‘A frightening event’
A police spokesman said she was in a critical but stable condition and that officials hoped she would make a full recovery from the attack.
“Though this was a frightening event, we want to remind New Yorkers that shark bites in Rockaway are extremely rare,” a spokesman for the city’s parks and recreation department said.
A police helicopter was used to search for the shark, without success.
Attacks from sharks are rare, with only 57 reported incidents worldwide last year, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File database.
But there has been an increase in incidents in recent years and a spate of bites in New York.
Of the 57 attacks, 41 took place in the US, with eight of these in New York.
Numerous attacks were recorded in early July to the east of Rockaway, with a 15-year-old girl reportedly being bitten by a shark while swimming at Long Island’s Robert Moses beach.
Another 15-year-old was bitten on the foot and taken to hospital while surfing off the adjacent Fire Island.
The following day, a 49-year-old man was bitten on the hand while swimming at the island, while a woman aged around 50 was later attacked.
A 47-year-old man was also thought to have been bitten on the knee at Quogue Village beach, a public beach further east on Long Island.
A similar series of attacks in New York last summer triggered beach closures.
‘Success story for conservation’
Experts say the increased number of sand tiger sharks is due to a number of factors, including improved water quality and thriving populations of the bunker fish that sharks feed on.
Last year, researchers at Stony Brook University said the increased numbers were “a success story for conservation” and attributed the rise to ongoing work cleaning the water around Long Island.
Gavin Naylor, the director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, said the shark populations were “the result of some really excellent resource management strategies that have increased not only the shark populations somewhat modestly but also their prey”.
He said swimmers at New York beaches should take precautions to avoid encounters with the marine creatures.
“People should always swim in groups. They shouldn’t swim too far from the shore, and they should particularly avoid bait fish,” Mr Naylor told CNN last month.
State authorities have deployed drones to search for sharks from the skies, with some success.
A popular New York beach was closed on July 4 after drones spotted a shiver of sand tiger sharks swimming offshore.
Sand tiger sharks are not known to bite human beings deliberately, but can attack if they mistakenly believe swimmers are their fish prey.
It is thought that the rhythm of swimming and splashing can mimic the underwater sounds created by fish and this tricks the sharks into an attack.
