Science
Experts Reveal Lifesaving Rule To Avoid Shark Attacks After Great White Sighting At Tourist Beach
Aquatic experts have offered some life-saving tips for anyone who might be unlucky enough to come across a great white in the ocean as shark season in the United States draws near.
A nine-year-old girl nearly lost her hand after being bitten while snorkelling in the Sunshine State, and the “biggest great white shark” ever documented resurfaced in a popular tourist destination in America just this month—the Florida/Georgia coastline.
Leah Lendel was with her family off the shore of Boca Grande, Florida, on June 11 when the incident occurred.
“I was just snorkelling, and then I went up to breathe,” she told the press. “Then something hard bit me and tried to tug me away. I looked at my hand, and it was covered in blood. I started screaming for my mom.”
She should fully recover because, thankfully, she arrived at the hospital and was on the treatment table in time for the physicians to save her hand.
Her experience with an eight-foot-long apex predator, however, wasn’t the only one this month; on June 17, less than a week later, an attack occurred on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, in which a person’s leg was injured but not seriously.
Contender – North America’s biggest male great white
Contender is the largest male great white shark ever observed in North America and is referred to as the “biggest great white shark” in history.
The 14-foot, 1,653-pound monster was once only 45 miles from Jacksonville, Florida, but it has now been seen swimming farther up the American coast to North Carolina.
How to avoid shark attacks
Now, OCEARCH’s principal scientist and veterinarian, Dr Harley Newton, has given swimmers some life-saving advice: avoid wearing jewellery or anything dazzling in the water.
Additionally, if at all possible, keep near the beach and refrain from swimming alone.
“The ocean is a wild place,” Newton explained.
“If you see schools of fish, particularly if they’re jumping out of the water, that might be something that you want to move away from because that’s going to be very attractive for sharks, and it might help you avoid an accident or an incident.”
She has also emphasised that you should face the shark and carefully back away if you do spot one while swimming rather than turning your back.
What should you do if a shark approaches you in the water?
Ocean Ramsey, a shark conservationist from Hawaii, gave UNILAD similar guidance.
According to Ocean, if you watch any of the “sensationalised, demonising, fictitious movies” about sharks, you will witness shark victims scream, splash, and swim away quickly—all actions that are strictly forbidden.
“You have to make yourself look big, just like you would with a territorial dog,” Ocean advised. “Face it, make yourself look big, and slowly back away.”
“Try and minimize noise and splashing. If you are approached, look at them, face them, slowly back away,” Ocean said.
“And then I even go into redirection techniques [in her book], so if the shark kept approaching you’d want to extend an inanimate object – if you’ve got dive fins, if you’ve got like a GoPro on a pole, a big camera, or even potentially your surfboard.”
“If it’s really going at you, which is so rare, and then you know, as it turns you’d slowly start to move back and exit, minimizing the splashing of the noise, definitely not panicking… if at all possible.”
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