Officials in Egypt have tracked down the shark responsible for THREE attacks along its coastline – but will not kill it, it was revealed today.
Authorities in the resort of Nama Bay, Sharm el Sheikh, reported an adult oceanic white tip shark was responsible for injuring three Russian tourists in attacks during the last 24-hours.
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism released a statement to all anxious British holidaymakers in the region yesterday.
They reported that they had tracked down the shark, but were trying to catch it and release it back into a remote area of the Gulf of Suez.
They added the resort – popular with thousands of Brits each year – had suspended all diving and water sports until Friday.
A statement read: “The MoT has announced that all beaches will be closed to the public and all water sports activities will be suspended until the end of the day tomorrow (2/12) along the whole of the Sharm el Sheikh coast.
“It has been reported that three Russian tourists have been attacked in three separate incidents in the last 24 hours in an area north of Nama Bay.
“The victims, one male and two females, are currently being treated in hospital.
“Officials from the South Sinai National Park have tracked down the shark in question – confirmed to be an adult oceanic white tip shark.
“The South Sinai National Park authority are currently attempting to capture the shark with the aim of releasing it back into the wild in a remote area in the Gulf of Suez.
“The chosen location will be in a safe distance from any tourist resorts in the Red Sea.”
Yea yea yea!!
THE SHARK WILL BE KILLED!!
I dont think they have the facilities here to catch a shark keep it safe on the boat until they release it somewhere else!!!
People stop making us beleive that this is the case!
it will KILL another dozen b4 they catch it!!
Millions dive and swim safely in the Red Sea every year and we have to accept that other animals live there…that is part of the reason we visit after all isn’t it? I have dived and snorkelled with Oceanic white tips on many occasions without a problem. While I would not point the finger at the individuals who have suffered attacks on this occasion I have seen some incredibly irresponsible behaviour by Russian divers before. Would you muck about and tease a pride of lions…perhaps not!
No it will not. Unless the shark is provoked they do not just randomly attack. They do not even like the taste of human flesh.
alison how do you no they do not like human flesh,have you asked one lately,try telling that to the people who have lost somewon to a shark attack, i live in austrailia for a while ,and there was a guy who was attacked by a shark and he lost his leg,then he bled to death on the beach,and his to kids were with him ,and saw this,so please do not preach about something you no very little about,sharks are dangerous ,and we also no there are ones who do not attack human beings,i no longer swim in the sea due to the fact , a great white could be any where,and once you have seen what they can do ,like i have,it may put you off swimming in the sea.
I’m sorry to hear about your experience in Australia but ask yourself, if the man who was attacked was attacked because the shark wanted to eat him, then why wasn’t he eaten? Unfortunately when a large shark bites a human either out of curiosity or mistaken identity, the victim often dies of blood loss, not because he/she was eaten. If the shark liked the taste of human flesh the chances are it would have eaten the rest of him.
It’s a shame that you’re now too afraid to enter the sea, have you not considered how many tmies you’ve been observed by sharks when you’ve done so previously?
there have been many documented shark attacks where the victim has been eaten (or part of him/her).and repeat attacks have taken place, mainly by great whites.
when preying on seals a great white will normally take a bite out of its prey then wait till it bleeds to death before eating it, (to avoid injury from the struggle), so just biting a human would be completely normal feeding behaviour for a great white
Hopefully a couple of posters on here!
In my opinion, this shark should be killed and never to be released in the red sea again. I am saying that because what I know is that inside the brain of this specific shark, there are now a recorded information about how to reach the beaches, it is now save to reach the beaches without hitting the coral leafs, taste of human meat is good, etc….. Also I am afraid that this shark share what I knew during his isolated experience with other sharks, so this can lead to more shark attaches. So I think just for safety, this shark should be killed.
Hello RGEMMY!!!
IGNORANT MURDERER!
mia you are a fool,hope one day you encounter a shark,and you can give it a big cuddle,as it bites you f…ing arm off you twat.
Oh yeah, so every creature that ever bit some idiot of a human should be killed? Knee jerk reactions like this based on false assumptions is what will lead to more wholesale slaughter of creatures in their natural habitat.
Hey there Rgemmy,
You really think that sharks have a little GPS built in to their brain?
Do you also think that it has a little menu for it’s favourite food up there?
Longimanus is a very oportunist feeder, as it normaly lives in the open ocean it has to eat virtually anything that passes in front of its mouth.
Nobody will play ball with a lion or a crocodile when they are on a safari. So when we enter the realm of the bigger fish we can expect things like this will happen. Man might be smart and able to communicate, but our body is RUBBISH. The smallest touch will give us a black spot or a broken bone. Please think about that for a minute.
Just killing an animal that is in its natural habitat and tried to find out what was at the surface is not the solution. We need to find out why the shark was there, and that will probably be because humans were feeding it and thus changing its behavour.
Sunny greets from Sharm el Sheik.
DONT BE STUPID !!!!!!!!
By the way…. sharks do NOT carry cell phones with them, they won’t be able to share the information with theirs alike.
i agree with you Rgemmy,theres to many so called do gooders that want to save these sharks,any shark thats near the beach should be killed.
ive been their and i thhink the russians were provoking the shark!!!
i have just come back from diving there and we all must realise that the sea is thier home, we are only visitors – if we swim and conduct recreational activities in these environments then we must be prepared for what nature can do.
Ridiculous! After diving in Sharm many time I strongly suspect these people were probably provoking the shark. It is a common known fact that sharks don’t even like the taste of human flesh, so it would have been provoked and reacted. We must learn to respect wildlife and give it space the space it deserve, after all these people were venturing into it’s habitat.
Oh its a common known fact they dont like the taste of human flesh is it what…… a load of crap you are spouting
I’m here in Sharm right now. These people were just snorkeling. One is a 70 yr old woman. I guess she was provoking the shark too. Ridiculous you idiot!
My wife and I spent 4 days snorkeling at Baron Resort, Ras Nasrani, two weeks ago. We saw many Russians there who could not swim very well flailing their arms and legs in the water, and I wondered at the time how long it would be before something like this happened. Joke all you want about the Russians provoking the shark, but I don’t see the humor.
no one cares. (.) (.)
Cannot be proven that it was just one shark. No remote location in the gulf of Suez.
Cannot safely get that shark to admit the crime then safely locate it elsewhere.
Negligence is the order here.
Oceanic sharks do not normally come in alongside reefs and this shark has obviously lost its way. We have been in the water many times with Oceanics and they will not attack unless they feel threatened.
You should absolutely NOT kill the shark !!!!
Posted by Alison and John, Dream Divers Ltd, Rotherham, South Yorkshire,England…….
i think they are doing the right thing by releasing it away from narma bay
Have to laugh at so many ignorant people here
Im a diver and a regular visitor to Sharm and sharks are something we often try and track down to swim with – they DO NOT randomly attack humans, I think in the whole world since records began only 9 recorded instances have ever been recorded
We dont know why it attacked or the circumstances leading up to it but its not uncommon for us humans to lure animals not saying this is the case
As for capture of course the authorities can capture and release they are not stupid even a primitive net can be used most boat skippers are so experianced in these waters this simply would not be an issue and then there is such a thing as radar
would be nice for each poster after making there rant that they are free to do so should post there experiance or qualifaction as to wether its an informed view or one from an armchair
Shut up
Rgemmy and Kaz: Congratulations, you’re both responsible for two of the most uneducated posts I’ve ever read.
Moving this shark to another location won’t work. They’re Oceanic by nature and it will find it’s way back. The problem isn’t the shark, it’s the divers/swimmers. If you entice the animal in with food, it’ll become aggressive. As has been said in a previous post, millions of people dive and swim with these animals every year, whether they’re aware of it or not, and these attacks are extremely rare. A similar attack (fatality) happened in 2008, and it was concluded that people were feeding the sharks from the boat, and then jumping in. Very clever.
Agree with most of your post, however it doesnt appear that this shark was being baited so this was abberant behaviour in this particular animal. There is a risk that if it has happened on a food sourse it will continue this behaviour with perhaps fatal results. As you said relocation would seem a fruitless exercise so the conclusion seems obvious as how to deal with this shark. Perhaps some diver education on how to interact (or not) with marine animals should be included in padi courses might help prevent future inoidents.
The best way to deal with it then is to keep the water clear for a week or two, NOT to kill it. Many divers, and a good deal of those who visit the coasts of Egypt do so for the chance to see an Oceanic Whitetip in it’s natural habitat. Killing this animal will send a very clear message to people who wish to dive there… we’ll take your money but we’re not willing to protect our resources.
Of course, they’d never close the coast for more than a few days.
The rules are simple. If you dive or snorkel anywhere in the world, you do so with the chance of encountering something potentially dangerous. If you’re worried about it, you shouldn’t be diving, but at least take something to put between you and the animal.
As for including a program as part of PADI courses, I doubt very much if they’d see that as a viable option. More people would be scared out of completing the course than would see the benefit. Everybody knows that there are sharks in the sea, if people want reliable information, they need only speak to their Dive Masters.
Anybody else notice that the shark caught today was a Mako shark? He/She is still out there (probably 1000 miles away)!!
meh who cares too many damn russians anyway
On the contrary, the Russian population has lowered annually since the collapse of the USSR, and Medvedev has openly encouraged his people to produce more offspring. 🙂
shut up you twats!!!!!
I was the shark that bit the bastards!
Kaz,
Another dozen???It didn’t even kill these 3 which it could easily have done if it wanted to.Let’s be honest Sharks have more to fear from man than we have from them and moronic statements like yours provoke more needless slaughter of these much maligned creatures.
Feel sorry for the one who had his arms bitten off 🙁
We know so little about sharks that to make presumptions about thier behaviour would be daft, to make presumptions about an INDIVIDUAL sharks FUTURE behavior would be incredably stupid.
We know the white tip as a species doesn’t actively hunt people but that thier aggression is well documented. We also know that we have rouges in every species on the planet, lions, dogs, bears, and yes, humans. We put them down, we isolate them, rehabiuate them or we lock them up. Given the importance of water based sport to the local economy I cannot see any other sensible option than to (regretably) put this particular animal down.
i would kill it,i am a fisherman,and have fished for sharks,and have released many,as catch and release pollicy,but this shark is a rogue shark and will attack again,as it now has the taste for human flesh,so all you do gooders out there should shut up because you no nothing,try asking the poor russians who were attacked if they would like this shark ,killed,i think i know the answer to that,if a dog bites somewon it gets put down,so why not a shark..
How ignorant of you to assume that nobody else on this forum knows anything.
If a pet dog attacks somebody it is put down. A shark is not a pet and cannot be expected to behave in any particular way. There is no comparisson.
Furthermore, rather than asking the Russian victims if they’d like the shark killed, ask them if they think it’s a good idea for dive boats to feed sharks in order to lure them to humans…
so was this german tourist feeding the shark when it bit her f…ing arm off you clown.
It sounds like you’ve misinterperated my post, before undermining your own with a petty insult. Furthermore, your punctuation could use some improvement.
I haven’t suggested that the poor woman had been feeding the sharks, but it is well known among the diving community that the dive operators drop food from the boats to attract sharks. It’s illegal to do so, and nobody will admit to it, but I’ve witnessed it myself.
Allow me to add that as a fisherman, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that your first inclination is to wipe out the sharks whether they’re the individuals responsible or not. Afterall, that’s what you and your colleagues have done to everything else in the ocean. Neither does it surprise me that you’re so confrontational to anybody who argues with you. Perhaps it’d just be better for everyone if you stayed away from the internet.
Guys ive done over a 100 dives in sharm and have dived with 12 hammer heads and white tips. You can not take anything for granted in these water this is their home and if they feel intimidated they will attack. We dive to see sharks we put ourselves at risk. The shark should not be killed. it will see there is no activity in the water and will gracefully move on.
Amrit
No, it does not have to do with people provoking the shark. That is unfair to say about the three who were attacked. They were swimming just a few metres from the coral wreath, so the shark was not only attracted to the fish but also the movement of the people. The White Tip, the kind of shark that attacked them, is a deep water shark, and when it attacks the people don’t often see it coming. One theory is that the shark was led here from tourist excursions like the glass bottom boats. Fish feeding is illegal in Sharm el Sheikh, but so as to not disappoint customers and to attract more customers, the glass bottom boat excursions feed the fish to attract them to the boat; this brings in fish that are deep water fish and then the White Tip sharks follow the boats/fish in land.
This is a 3 metres long White Tip, not a reef shark, it does not need to be provoked like a Reef Shark. To say they were probably probably provoking it because they were Russian is prejudice and insensitive. I see so many Brits and other Western Europeans act equally foolish here in Sharm (just saw a British woman get bit by a fish last week because she was feeding them). You may see a lot of Russians doing silly things but you see and remember what you are looking for based on your prejudgment. Also, because there are often a higher number of Russians on the beach over people from the UK and North America you have a higher probability of seeing someone from Russia do something silly.
There are boats that go regularly between Eritrea and Aqaba to deliver sheep, and when they pass throught the Strait of Tiran throw dead sheep overboard. It is equivalent to shark feeding and can explain the behavior of the sharks. In the mean time while on the surface, stay close to the reef and don’t swim in the blue on the surface!
the sea was getting a bit crowded. so i strapped a fin to my back and messed up some ruskies now the sea is ALL MINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Alison, It’s Rhonda from Divers International! The management of Sofitel today told us that 2 months ago they found 3 dead sheep on the beach that were all torn apart. It was early in the morning so they cleaned it up and didn’t say anything. Today we heard reports that a day or 2 before the attacks a freighter carrying sheep from Eritrea to Aqaba had thrown dead sheep overboard when passing through the Strait of Tiran. So this explains a lot. They have now caught the shark, and it doesn’t sound like it is alive. It is going to be stuffed by a taxidermist and on display in the National Park Museum. But they first need to do further tests to be sure it is the same shark. It is only 2.25 meteres, so I don’t think it is the right shark unfortunately. The shark responsible should be at least 3 meters, and I don’t think it is 1 shark. They have to get the coast guard to stop ships from throwning dead animals overboard when passing through the strait. I think this is the problem and it is happening frequently like 2 times per month or even weekly. I’ll keep you updated. Cheers!
All most certainly the most sensible reply. Sharks are an aquatic animal neither to be loved or hated but respected. They are not provoked by people instead their normal patterns of behaviour are altered by our behaviour i.e. Providing them with ready meals. Once they are aware of this fact they act on it choosing to hang around where the going is easy. Take away the easy food then they revert back to what we see as “normal” behaviour.
There may of course be more than one shark acting in this way because contrary to most of our thoughts they are pretty smart and very efficient at what they do!
Well some intellegent opinions but what about the rest of the uneducated idiots on here. I visit Sharm a lot and have seen the Russians behaving very badly in the sea, walking on the coral and feeding the fish regularly with meat products, boiled eggs and anything from breakfast. They are an ingnorant nations with no social skills or an inkling on how to behave sensibly. I WANT I HAVE attitude. I am sorry they were hurst but it was only a matter of time.
youre 100% correct tag ive been twice and are returning on the 6th of december, these russians are a very arrogant selfish lot, i truly wish them no harm and am sad that this unfortunate thing happened but as you say we are all told dont feed the fish, which obviosly attracts bigger fish and sharks to the snorkeling area, i will not be put off by what happened and will be snorkeling on tuesday, if anything we are more dangerous in the way we bahave and treat there environment than they to us. end rant.
Have a good time ButlerBoy, I wish I could say I’m jealous, but I’ll no longer be visiting the coast of Egypt as they’ve gone and killed at least two sharks. Pathetic response, but one we all knew was coming.
I have my fingers crossed for you, that you get to witness Mr Long Hands without incident, before he’s extinct.
I spent a week in Sharm during the Summer- we went there purposely because of the fantastic underwater life there. I researched quite a bit before we actually left for the holiday to see what the chances of me encountering a shark was (something that, as much as I love under the sea,- I really really did not want to come in contact with!!!!) I found out all the different types of sharks etc but decided I would risk it and go diving there anyway. Some people out there genuinely believed that there was no sharks in the red sea (I was pretty dumbfounded by this) until I went to book the diving/ snorkeling trips. I asked again about marine life and of course sharks to be told “no shark here- we don’t have shark in Egypt…” I was like ye right so did not book that trip, I found another to be told that “here in Egypt are sharks are friendly…” HAHAHA I really am unsure where this mans opinions came from! I was then shown photos of a diving instructor from this place who took out dead chickens on tourist dive trips so as to attract these sharks because people wanted to see them. To be honest- I don’t see how anyone can blame these people for doing things like feeding the fish if the diving instructors and locals are doing exactly the same thing… If people are (admittedly stupid enough) to believe that there are no sharks out there or they are friendly I doubt they thought twice about doing things that may put themselves in danger…! I certainly will be going diving in Sharm again- I just hope that this unfortunate incident does not put others of doing the same!!!
more soup for the chinnese
I was in sharm 3 weeks ago and i really wanted to take the scuba course and give diving a go but i am now scared too :-, Its sad whats happend but like u all say if there is bate being put in the water then the sharks will rise maybe this will teach them a lesson, oh and people should stop being so narrow minded and racist.
Oceanic White Tip at Ras Katy – Oct 2010
Im an experienced diver who has been diving over 12 years and visited the red sea 15 times.
I have seen many Grey reef and Whitetip reef sharks but never an Oceanic Whitetip Shark near the shore until 1st October 2010.
This was at the “Check dive site “ of Ras Katy – just south of Ras um Sid and Naama bay.
We had moored up our Live aboard and were relaxing before our night dive when to my surprise a 2 to 2.5 m Oceanic Shark, along with an accompanying shoal of pilot fishes came swimming around our Dive boat.
It continued to swim around near the bow for over 40 mins , mouthing the surface water and splashing about until it got too dark for us to see it.
Only 4 divers did the night dive after this and none of us saw the shark during our 30 minutes swim around the Pinnacle – too busy dodging the Lion fish !
Local dive guide and crew said it was a “friendly shark” and they appeared to have seen it regularly.