Experts Called in After Shark Attack Causes Fatality in Sharm El-Sheikh

(Dive Travel Business News - December 7, 2010) -- Egyptian authorities have called in an international team of shark experts to "assess and advise on the best course of action" after the Red Sea resort of Sharm el- Sheikh experienced five shark attacks in one week.  

The call comes after a shark attacked and killed a 70-year-old German woman while she was swimming north of Namaa Bay on Dec 5.  A shark attacked and seriously injured two Russian snorkelers on Nov. 30 in the Ras Nasrani area off Sharm el-Sheikh. Two swimmers, one Russian and one Ukrainian, were attacked the following day.  After the first attacks authorities closed the beaches and captured two sharks, an oceanic whitetip and a mako shark, that they believed were responsible for the attacks.

Since the fifth attack that ended in a fatality, the resort's beaches have been closed for a second time and tourists are temporarily banned from swimming and snorkeling. However, Egypt's Chamber of Diving and Water Sports said in a recent statement that some areas in Sharm el-Sheikh will be open for experienced scuba divers with at least 50 logged dives, including Ras Muhammad.

The shark experts traveling to Egypt include George H. Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research and curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History; Marie Levine, head of the Shark Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey; and Ralph Collier of the Shark Research Committee of Chatsworth, California, the diving chamber said. A fourth, Erich Ritter, a shark behavioral expert, is advising from his research centre in the U.S. A Swedish research vessel is also obtaining survey data of the ocean topography to assist the shark experts in their work. Sharks are opportunistic feeders who don't come to specifically attack humans as humans are not seen as a food source: The team will try to determine why the sharks were lured into shallow waters, and what prompted them to carry out the attacks.

The Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association, a non-governmental organization, warned last week that the real culprit could still be at large.  It noted on its website on Dec 3 that pictures of a oceanic whitetip shark and a mako shark that authorities killed after the first attacks did not match photographs of a larger whitetip taken by the snorkelers before they were attacked. "It is clear that they don't show the same individual".  On Dec 4  authorities re-opened the beaches; the fatal attack occurred the following day.

The environmental group believes that the string of attacks is the result of a single individual behaving in a highly abnormal way.  Not to be confused with white tip reef sharks, oceanic whitetips are large (up to 4m) pelagic sharks that typically stay in deeper water. Oceanic white tips frequent the region but it was unusual for swimmers to encounter them in shallow waters.  It is highly unusual for oceanic white tip sharks to attack humans, particularly this close to shore: Only nine such attacks have ever been recorded worldwide. A study of oceanic whitetips in the Egyptian part of the Red Sea showed that only 11 sharks approaching the size of the whitetip believed responsible for the attack on the snorkelers last week had been "documented" during the past six years.  

South Sinai Governor Mohammed Shosha insists that at least one of the sharks captured on Friday was the culprit in last week's attacks and believes there is another rogue shark.

The unusual shark behavior has baffled experts and observers, but a number of possible explanations for the attacks have surfaced. Of particular concern is over- fishing. Sharks adopt search behavior aiming to maximize their encounters with food sources. There is likely to be a relationship between natural prey distributions and shark distributions, as the sharks generally go where the food is. And while Sharm el-Sheikh has a national park - and reef fish are not a shark's natural prey - over-fishing in the Red Sea of tuna and other large fish has reduced fish stocks causing sharks to come closer to shore in search of prey.

A different possibility is that predatory sharks could have been drawn to the area after a ship carrying Australian sheep and cattle for sacrifice during last month's Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha dumped the carcasses of animals which had died dying during the voyage. Of note: Carcasses are commonly used as chum to attract pelagic great white sharks on cage dive expeditions in South Africa and other pelagic hot spots.

Shark attacks are rare in the Red Sea. The last recorded attack was in 2009, south of Hamata, involving a French tourist. The incident was investigated by local authorities. Diving centers in the area were accused of shark feeding. It’s not clear if any legal action was taken.

“The practice of shark feeding must stop in the Red Sea,” said Dr Mahmoud Hanafy, a professor of marine biology at the Suez Canal University. “It disrupts the marine ecology and associates man with food in the minds of the sharks.”

Concerned that the government is stepping up its efforts to kill more sharks, Chamber of Diving and Watersports has also issued a statement demanding authorities stop killing sharks, calling instead for measures to be taken to regulate snorkeling. 

“Sharks do not attack divers,” explained a diving instructor who did not want to be named. “They only attack snorkelers, mistaking them for food in sites where shark feeding takes place. The snorkelers’ inexperienced and erratic behavior also agitates the sharks. If the government kills those sharks, our environment and business are ruined.”

According to Dr. Hanafy, shark populations have declined in the Red Sea.  “They are a national treasure that has to be protected, not slaughtered,” said Dr. Hanafy.

Authorities are keen to restore normality to the thriving and popular resort, one of the pillars of the vital Egyptian tourism industry.  Tourism accounts for about 13 percent of the country's jobs.  According to the Egypt Tourism Ministry, eighty percent of tourists who visit Egypt spend time on the eastern coastline seeking sun, sand and diving. In 2011, Egypt aims to attract more than 16 million tourists, generating more than $14 billion in revenue.

"We are concerned," Tourism Ministry spokeswoman Omayma El-Husseini. "Any incident that threatens the safety of tourists is a cause for concern and the proof is that beaches have been closed."

Despite making headlines, attacks by sharks are extremely rare, and fatal attacks even more so. According to the University of Florida's International Shark Attack Files, there are an estimated 70-100 shark attacks on humans per year, resulting in about five to 15 deaths. Of those, the oceanic white tip is responsible for only a small number. While sharks are absolutely essential to maintaining a healthy balance in our ocean eco-systems, sharks in general face extinction, primarily because of overfishing.  Recent studies show steeply declining populations of the oceanic whitetip throughout its range because its large fins are highly valued as the chief ingredient of shark fin soup.  

The practice of finning is very controversial. Shark fin soup is a delicacy in China, and demand is growing as more Chinese enter the middle classes. The fins are obtained by cutting the fin off living sharks and then discarding the rest of the body - which is of little value to fishermen - back into the sea, where the usually still-living shark sinks to the ocean floor and dies. Some 38 million sharks are killed because of their fins each year but more die for the meat and in by-catch. Shark finning is illegal in US territorial waters and that of many other countries, but enforcement is lax.   

On Dec 6, South Sinai Govenor Abdel-Fadeel Shousha said in a live interview with the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television that the government didn't expect the ban on swimming and snorkeling to last more than three days:  Experts in the field counter this statement, saying finding the problem shark or sharks in a sea of marine life could be a daunting task.

Additional Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_whitetip_shark
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11926406
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/1/1166/Egypt/Government%E2%80%9...

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