Why So Many Shark Attacks Off Carolina Coasts?
Read Time:1 Minute, 33 Second
If you swim in the ocean you need to know that sharks also swim, and feed, in that ocean. The vast majority of shark attacks occur in relatively shallow water and sharks are often drawn close to shore by the activities of fishermen.
by Dana Ford, CNN
Sharks have attacked 10 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 recent shark attacks at CNN.com.
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It’s “teh gheyz” being all equal and stuff that’s what I read on one of the whackadoodle sites.
That’s it. The sharks attacking bathers is the wrath of the Jeebus and pop because SCOTUS blessed “teh gheyz.”
The ocean belongs to them. We should stay out of their homes.