Environmental changes may have led to Middle East shark attacks and a worldwide increase.
Shark attacks increased a whopping 25% worldwide, including recent attacks in Egypt. In the 2010 report released by the University of Florida International Shark File, file director and shark expert George Burgess said that “the most unusual shark incident of my career” occurred in Egypt.
The December 2010 Red Sea attacks, responsible for one of the year’s six fatalities, also led to 5 injuries.
Burgess gave several possible reasons for the attacks:
- Very high water temperatures due to an unusually hot summer;
- Sheep dumped into the water by a cargo ship after they died in transit;
- Divers feeding reef fishes and even sharks.
Overfishing may also have led to sharks searching for new sources of food.
Usually the sharks are not found so close to the shore. The Egyptian authorities killed two of the sharks thought responsible for injuring 3 tourists, but they turned out to be the wrong sharks. The most vicious of the sharks struck a second time, killing a woman.
Florida, where most incidents occur, saw shark attacks drop to 12, half its annual average. The US still led with 36 attacks. Sharks also attacked humans in Australia, South Africa, and Vietnam.
Burgess emphasized that fishing kills 50-70,000 sharks a year, to be eaten as a delicacy in soup. Humans are a much greater danger to sharks than sharks are to humans. Sharks kill an average of 5 humans annually.
More posts on animals and the environment:
8 Exquisite and Endangered Animals of the Middle East
Governor Bans Recreational Sports Fishing in Southern Sinai
Protection Legislation Endangers Red Sea Sharks
:: photo via flickr: USFWS Pacific
:: story via MSNBC news:
Author: Hannah Katsman
Hannah learned environmentalism from her mother, a conservationist before it was in style. Once a burglar tried to enter their home in Cincinnati after noticing the darkened windows (covered with blankets for insulation) and the snow-covered car in the driveway. Mom always set the thermostat for 62 degrees Fahrenheit (17 Celsius) — 3 degrees lower than recommended by President Nixon — because “the thermostat is in the dining room, but the stove’s pilot light keeps the kitchen warmer.” Her mother would still have preferred today’s gas-saving pilotless stoves. Hannah studied English in college and education in graduate school, and arrived in Petach Tikva in 1990 with her husband and oldest child. Her mother died suddenly six weeks after Hannah arrived and six weeks before the first Gulf War, and Hannah stayed anyway. She has taught English but her passion is parental education and support, especially breastfeeding. She recently began a new blog about energy- and time-efficient meal preparation called CookingManager.Com. You can find her thoughts on parenting, breastfeeding, Israeli living and women in Judaism at A Mother in Israel. Hannah can be reached at hannahk (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
It’s sad they killed those two innocent sharks by mistake.
5 versus 70 000… I think the sharks have a long way to go to catch up to what us humans have done to them. I am not saying that anyone deserves to be attacked by a shark (but if you put a gun to my head I’m sure I could come up with a few thousand people off the top of my head) but no shark deserves to be slaughtered just for their fins. When are we going to wake up and realize just how quickly we are trashing the earth? This era will probably be remembered as one of the stupidest of humankind. We know what we are doing is wrong and many of us agree that it is and yet it still goes on – full steam ahead. Its a torture to watch.