Carolina Beaches: It May Not Be Safe To Go Back In the Water After 11 Shark Attacks
Sharks live to eat. That’s pretty much all they do; eat and swim. While you have a better chance of being bitten by a human or getting elected president of the United States, shark attacks do occur as the folks who frequent the Carolina Beaches can tell you.
The big question is: What’s causing this dramatic increase in attacks? It’s tempting to say the sharks are getting revenge for the millions of their own that are slaughtered regularly by the Chinese, but that’s probably not why.
By Dana Ford, CNN
Sharks have attacked 11 people off the coast of North and South Carolina this year, according to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, including a man bitten Wednesday on the Outer Banks’ Ocracoke Island.
That’s higher than the average of six attacks a year off the coasts of those two states.
What’s behind the increase?
A number of factors could be contributing to the apparent rash of attacks, such as warmer water and drought conditions, said George H. Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Drought conditions reduce the amount of freshwater making it to the sea, which creates an environment along the shore where higher salt levels attract more fish and sharks, Burgess said.
Warmer waters have sharks in North Carolina ahead of schedule, which is a recipe for more attacks. At Oak Island, North Carolina, two teenagers were bitten 90 minutes apart on June 14.
Burgess said people are going to the beach in higher numbers, now that school is out for the summer.
“This is a situation that we can’t ignore, as we’ve had a number of attacks that are serious within a short period of time,” he told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360°” on Wednesday night.
“There’s something going on there, there’s no doubt about that. It’s a perfect storm of environmental and biological variables as well as human activity,” Burgess said.
But in a column Thursday for CNN.com, he warned against overstating the threat of shark attacks.
Read more about shark attacks at CNN.
Sharks are cool!!!!
Yes they are old bean!
There was a line from Jaws that went something like this, “All this thing does is eat, swim, and make baby sharks. That’s it. Eat, swim, and fuck.” I think I would opt for the hotel pool myself.
Me too old friend. Me too.
OMG! No way in this world would I swim in that area.