Woman bitten by shark in UK waters pleads for calm
There's a feeding frenzy in Cornwall, not from a Blue Shark that has bitten a snorkeler off the Penzance coast, but from the media circling for the next sensationalist shark story.
It must have been an alarming experience - which reportedly happened last week - but thankfully the as yet unnamed woman walked off the snorkel trip boat she had been on. And, crucially, she is calling for calm after this shark encounter.
In a statement released through Blue Shark Snorkel, the group who organised the trip, the woman said: “I just wanted to say that despite how the trip ended, it was amazing to see such majestic creatures in the wild and I don’t for a second want this freak event to tarnish the reputation of an already persecuted species.
“We all take these risks when we enter the habitat of a predator and we can never completely predict the reactions of a wild animal.”
Much has been made of this being the worst shark attack in UK waters since 1847, not that there was one in that year. That was just when records began!
The Mirror headline read 'Swimmer bitten and left with leg injury in horror shark attack off British coast' and The Sun was leading with 'Shark Horror' on its website.
And, naturally, the latter publication talked about an unconfirmed Great White Shark sighting in West Sussex earlier this year that got certain quarters of the UK media all excited.
Not to mention linking in a story about a British man who was killed by a great white earlier this year in Australia. The Cornwall encounter wasn't a great white and didn't cause serious injury, clearly this story is trying to make waves and raise fears. Guys, this isn't Jaws.
Kristian Parton, from Shark Bytes and a real-life Matt Hooper shark scientist, helped ground the shark encounter in the realms of reality.
He said: “Without knowing the context of the situation it’s difficult to know exactly what’s happened here, but an incident like this with a Blue Shark is incredibly rare. I’d be inclined to suggest this was some kind of territorial bite, i.e., you’re in my space and I don’t like it. As opposed to any kind of predation attempt. Blue Sharks are super curious and inquisitive, and can get incredibly close during in-water encounters."
That point was underlined by a spokesman for Visit Cornwall, putting a clear emphasis on the beaches being safe. Speaking to The Independent, although coming off sounding more than a little Mayor Vaughn, they said: “You don't have to worry as long as you swim on a lifeguarded beach. Sharks don’t eat people off Cornwall and we certainly don’t get Great Whites in our waters. There's no need to close the beaches at this stage.”
In fact no Great White Sharks, the same species as featured in Jaws, have even been confirmed as being in UK waters, despite numerous claims by national newspapers over the years.
Shark attacks are extremely rare, period, and even rarer in UK waters.
A spokesperson for Blue Shark Snorkel Trips said: "We want to make everyone aware that we have had an incident. These occurrences are extremely rare and can be easily misunderstood so we want this to be dealt with as sensibly as possible.
"As we know, these things can happen when we choose to interact with wild animals in their own environment. The last thing we want is to let speculation drive the media into a world of bad press for the sharks, under no fault of their own."
There are sharks in Cornwall, and big ones, but there is no cause for alarm as the biggest is the plankton eating Basking Shark.
As well as Basking, there are also Blue Sharks and Porbeagle Sharks that frequent Cornish waters, which we are lucky enough to share with them.
There was however one link to Jaws, the woman who was reportedly bitten on the leg by a shark was taken to Royal Cornwall Hospital at Truro. And Robert Shaw, who played the shark hunter Quint in the 1975 Steven Spielberg film went to the Truro School when he was growing up.
Words by Dean Newman
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