PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Two separate shark attacks on the same day in Walton County, Florida, injured two teenagers and caused a 45-year-old woman from the Richmond area to lose her hand. Such attacks are rare — even more so in our region.
According to the International Shark Attack File, there were just five confirmed unprovoked shark bites in Virginia since 1837. One of them was fatal, happening in 2001. They are just slightly more common in North Carolina. In the same time frame, they confirmed 80 shark bites.
A WAVY viewer sent 10 On Your Side pictures of a shark near the beach in Corolla, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Logan Abed said he captured the encounter on the afternoon of May 29.
“It’s nose is really wide like a tiger shark would be, but I don’t see the striping on it,” described Aquarist Britt Purtee with the NC Aquarium on Roanoke Island while looking at the pictures. “But it’s definitely not as big as a fully grown tiger shark.”
It is seen swimming about 20 feet away from a group of beach goers. Purtee said this is more common than most people think. After all, sharks live in the ocean.
“This probably happens all the time,” Purtee said. “It’s a very common thing to happen. It’s just people don’t see them. This is just normal activity. It’s not a shark going up to check out the people; it’s just doing its daily business.”
Shark encounters are more common further south, since warmer waters means more fish.
Though bites do happen, they are extraordinarily rare. Fatal bites are even rarer.
“There’s more of a chance of you being struck by lightning twice,” Purtee said.
Still, Purtee told 10 On Your Side about some easy ways to avoid shark bites.
- Do not swim where people are fishing.
- Avoid swimming at dusk and dawn, and
- Do not wear shiny jewelry — it can potentially look like fish scales to sharks.
- If you do see a shark while swimming, get out of the water.
“I take care of sharks and I swim with them all the time,” Purtee explained. “If I were in the ocean with my family and I saw a shark in the water, it would be really cool to see, but I would definitely want to give it space and I would get out of the water for a while.”
Just last week, a juvenile great white shark named Keji pinged in the waters east of Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks. Two other white sharks recently pinged off the coast of Virginia; Anne Bonny on May 27 and Simon on April 15.