Long Island shark attacks on record-setting pace after 5 swimmers bit so far this summer
It’s shaping up to be a “Jaws”-ome summer!
Long Island shark bites are happening at a fast and furious pace this year, one that is soon likely to shatter its record eight attacks in 2022.
So far five swimmers have been bitten in the waters off South Shore beaches since Monday — but experts urged bathers to cool their jet skis.
“Step back a little from the hysteria,” said Bradley Peterson, a professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University.
“You have to realize that you had a beautiful holiday Fourth weekend, you had hundreds of thousands of people standing in the water on the beaches of New York and two people got scratched on their leg,” he noted. “We’re not talking about anybody losing their life. No one lost their limb. No one was taken to the hospital.”
Want a bad guy? Blame the bunker fish.
Peterson said sharks and other predators are following their prey and the easiest way for them to land their lunch is to drive them into shallow water so it’s harder for the bunker fish to escape.
“So they drive these schools of bunker up into the shallows and they’re going for a bunker and they latch onto something they don’t want, they let go, and move away,” he explained.
Five of the 2022 Long Island shark attacks took place within three weeks in July, including lifeguards bitten on July 3 and July 7; two men chomped on in separate incidents within hours on July 13; and a 16-year-old surfer gnawed on July 20.
“There were 12,000 bites in the state of New York last year that required hospitalization and all of them came from humans,” Peterson joked. “So realistically, the people on the beach should be more scared about the person who’s swimming next to you.”
A new fleet of shark-monitoring drones will be sent to New York coastlines in response to the frightening spate of bites and sightings near Long Island this week, state officials said Friday.
