40 year old man tourist He was swimming and filming about 100 meters away Beach in Hadera Off the coast Israel In April when he suddenly became surrounded by a swarm of dusky sharks, a species generally considered harmless to humans.
Witness testimonies indicate a The shark reportedly lunged On his GoPro camera. Then eyewitnesses heard him screaming: “Help, they are biting me,” before he disappeared from sight as the water turned red and some of them fell. shark Fins can be seen on the surface. Local reports say that by the time rescue boats were able to arrive, the water was stained with blood and the man was gone.
“The next day, searches at sea recovered Human remains “(In very small quantities) allowed forensic confirmation of the victim’s identity, but also led to the conclusion that he was eaten by several sharks during this incident,” the researchers wrote.
The report published in the magazine ethicsdocuments the first known instance of the Dusky shark – A species with no known record Killing humans – Fatally attacking a diver during a feeding frenzy.
Researchers have attributed this extremely rare attack to a combination of factors, including human error, environmental distortion, and animal instinct amid a feeding frenzy.
While dusky sharks are large and look like predators, reaching about 3 meters (10 feet) in length, they are usually shy and wary of humans.
Dark sharks can be identified by their slanted dorsal fin (Getty/iStock)
The sea off Hadera in Israel has attracted sharks in large numbers due to the warm water emerging from desalination plants on the coast.
In addition, human feeding of these sharks, as well as the abundant food waste dumped in the area, has helped attract the dusky sharks even more, with dozens of them remaining each winter.
Local boat operators who cater to tourists have also dumped fish waste into these waters to keep sharks in the vicinity of customers.
Scientists explained that these factors together prompted sharks to associate humans with food, and a new behavioral pattern called “begging” emerged in them.
A number of sharks have been documented swimming directly towards divers, sometimes crashing into them in search of quick meals.
Close examination of photos from the scene revealed that the sharks were likely dark sharks based on the size and shape of their dorsal fins.
Scientists hypothesize that the competitive feeding environment created in these waters led to dusky sharks displaying frantic behavior at feeding time.
Dark sharks are attracted to the warm waters off the coast of Hadera (AFP/Getty)
“Competition for access to food resources goes beyond the usual behavior of the species, including the intrinsically non-instinctive nature of (human) prey,” they wrote.
“The situation likely occurred through a process of contiguous bites, with two distinct drivers: first, a reflex/clumsy bite (possibly single) driven by begging for food, and second, multiple predatory bites triggered by a feeding frenzy,” the researchers explain.
They say the solutions that can be taken to prevent such incidents in the future are simpler and more effective than the case of a traditional fatal shark bite from known deadly species such as tiger sharks.
“The main goal is to eliminate begging behavior in sharks, and this can only be achieved by imposing and enforcing a complete and comprehensive ban on all artificial feeding of sharks by the public,” the scientists wrote.
“Any other measure could be complementary, but undoubtedly less important than this approach,” the researchers concluded.
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