A Canadian vacationer attempting to {photograph} a shark in shallow water at a seashore within the Turks and Caicos Islands this month was bitten by the shark and misplaced each of her palms, officers mentioned.
The 55-year-old vacationer was handled at a hospital earlier than she left the island, Providenciales, a sandy, 38-square-mile magnet for snorkelers and solar seekers that’s ringed by turquoise waters.
The shark was about six ft lengthy, based on the Turks and Caicos authorities, however its species was unclear.
The vacationer had “tried to have interaction with the animal” in an effort to take footage of it earlier than she was bitten on Feb. 7, the Division of Surroundings and Coastal Sources in Turks and Caicos mentioned in a press release.
The girl, who had been snorkeling when she was bitten, was later transported to Canada to obtain further remedy, mentioned Laura Dowrich, a spokeswoman for Expertise Turks and Caicos, a tourism board for the islands.
The Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Drive mentioned it was investigating.
International Affairs Canada, the nation’s international affairs division, mentioned it was conscious of the episode and was contacting the native authorities for extra data and to supply its help.
The vacationer’s id was not instantly launched.
The seashore was closed however reopened on Feb. 9 after the shark was discovered to have moved into deeper water, based on the Division of Surroundings and Coastal Sources. Turks and Caicos, an archipelago, is a British territory and one of many Caribbean’s fanciest vacationer locations. Additionally it is dwelling to one of many largest barrier reefs on this planet.
Shark bites are extraordinarily uncommon and are sometimes accidents, specialists say. However sharks may cause extreme wounds after they mistake people for prey.
Internationally, there have been 88 confirmed or potential shark bites logged final 12 months by the Worldwide Shark Assault File on the College of Florida, a corporation that tracks shark knowledge.
Twenty-four have been provoked, which means {that a} human had initiated contact with the shark, based on the group. 4 folks died from shark bites. One among final 12 months’s recorded bites was in Turks and Caicos; it was not deadly.
The file’s director, Gavin Naylor, mentioned on Saturday that it was too quickly to say if this month’s chunk in Turks and Caicos was provoked or unprovoked.
However Chris Stefanou, a New York fisherman and conservationist who tags sharks, mentioned that photographing sharks can carry dangers, and that the shark may need confused a telephone for a fish.
“Sharks, or any predatory animal within the ocean, can confuse that as like a bait fish,” Mr. Stefanou mentioned, referring to small, shiny fish that draw sharks to shore. “The shark didn’t simply see a human: ‘Ooh, I’m hungry, I need to go take a chunk.’ That didn’t occur.”
The episode was not the one reported shark chunk within the Caribbean on Feb. 7. Within the night, two Individuals have been injured in what seemed to be a shark encounter in Bimini Bay within the northern Bahamas, based on the Royal Bahamas Police Drive.
Mr. Naylor mentioned two bites in sooner or later within the area was uncommon and made him “sit up a little bit.”
However it was not clear whether or not there was any pattern. The variety of confirmed unprovoked shark bites dropped to 47 final 12 months, down from 69 the 12 months earlier than, based on the Worldwide Shark Assault File.