A 65-year-old lady was bitten by a shark on Monday night off New York’s Rockaway Seashore and is in vital situation, the newest in a collection of shark assaults off the area’s coast.
The assault was reported at about 5.49pm, in response to the New York police division.
The lady was bitten on the leg and dropped at a hospital within the Jamaica part of Queens to be handled. Officers saved her life by making use of a tourniquet on her wound, the New York Day by day Information reported.
Individually, the New York Publish reported that the lady is suspected to have misplaced “roughly 20lbs of flesh” from a chew above the knee on her left leg that was inflicted when she was swimming alone off the shore.
Her chew prompted lifeguards to clear the water of swimmers as helicopter police searched unsuccessfully for the shark, the New York parks division mentioned in a press release. The seashore was closed on Tuesday for swimming and browsing after what was described as the primary identified shark chew there since 1953.
“We hope for a full restoration for this swimmer,” a police division spokesperson mentioned. “Although this was a daunting occasion, we wish to remind New Yorkers that shark bites in Rockaway are extraordinarily uncommon.”
However not that uncommon. A number of shark “encounters” have been reported final month off seashores in or close to New York. Over the Fourth of July vacation, 5 individuals have been bitten, together with a 15-year-old boy.
A 47-year-old man was bitten on the knee. Police mentioned in a press release that “the chew was from a bigger marine animal”.
A 49-year-old man was additionally bitten on his proper hand by a shark. Later that month, a 16-year-old surfer was bitten on the foot. “I felt one thing on my foot like a bear entice,” he later mentioned.
The prohibition on swimming was prolonged on Tuesday to incorporate seashores additional east of Rockaway Seashore in the direction of Lengthy Island – together with a number of areas of Jones Seashore – following attainable shark sightings.
New York parks official George Gorman mentioned the bans had gone into impact out of an abundance of warning, and that the shoreline was being monitored by surveillance drones always.
Gorman mentioned that after a attainable shark sighting, officers monitoring the shoreline noticed a big college of bait and bunker fish. “We’re involved that sharks would possibly feed off the smaller baitfish,” Gorman instructed Newsday.
Shark chew tallies for this summer time – at six to date – are trailing 2022, when a document eight shark have been reported. Eleven years in the past, in 2012, there was only one.
Human-shark interactions are sometimes attributed to sand-tiger sharks, a species that may develop to 10ft lengthy which have been seen in wholesome numbers alongside the surf line off Lengthy Island.
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Marine biologists say the sharks will not be seeking to chew people nor are their enamel well-suited for that job. As an alternative, they’re after massive faculties of Atlantic menhaden, or bunker fish, that they drive towards shallow waters close to the seashore.
Gavin Naylor, a shark researcher on the College of Florida, instructed Vox not too long ago that people can unintentionally mimic the sign emitted by faculties of menhaden, which at the moment are present in massive numbers since industrial fishing of the bait species was restricted.
Nonetheless, with extra people, extra bait and extra sharks within the waters of New York, the state has recorded eight of its 20 shark assaults since 1837 prior to now 12 months.
“There’s additionally a dozen different species, together with sand tiger sharks, sandbar sharks and dusky sharks, that share the habitat,” Tobey Curtis, a fishery administration and migratory species specialist with the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, instructed the Guardian final 12 months.
“If there’s extra sharks and extra individuals in the identical place on the similar time there’s extra probability of an interplay.”
The seashore is topic to a delayed opening on Tuesday, with a begin time of 11am on the earliest, as authorities will proceed to observe the world for sharks, the parks division mentioned.
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This text was amended on 9 August 2023 to make clear that the sufferer is 65, not 50 as beforehand said.