Shark Expert, Christina Zenato commented on the safety of the Bahamian waters for swimmers in the wake of an American woman losing her life in a shark attack in waters near Sandals Royal Bahamian in New Providence and a woman being reported missing after encountering a shark in waters near Grand Bahama while on a diving expedition.
Zenato told ZNS News, “we have over forty species of sharks in The Bahamas and 99.9% of the time these sharks will see humans, will see movement and will go, and they will do a check. I say jokingly, they go through a file folder, they’ll go no it doesn’t match. And so they’ll avoid the contact with the person in the water. And then unfortunately on those extremely rare occasions the shark might decide that it checks.”
“In a unique, rare occasion the shark goes I will bite this. I will test bite it and decide then yes or no. Attack makes it look like the shark is mean and is conniving and we really don’t need that for these animals. That one bite might be enough to unfortunately cause the demise of the person.”
Zenato advises swimmers in the vicinity of a shark to stay calm, relax, face the animal and make your presence known.
