Swimming is banned in parts of Nantucket after two sharks were seen devouring seals in viral videos

Swimming has been banned in parts of a Nantucket wildlife refuge after a horrific offshore scene of seals being eaten alive by sharks hovering near shore.

Five seals were reportedly killed by sharks in recent days, leading officials from the Trustees of Reservations and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to close the Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Refuge, a remote beach in the popular tourist region of Massachusetts.

Swimming is no longer allowed in the area and will remain ‘until further notice’.

“This is not a decision we took lightly. Visitor safety is our main concern, especially given the remoteness of this beach should a serious incident occur,” said Sarah Cassell, a spokesperson for the Trustees.

“We will continue to monitor shark activity in conjunction with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

The trustees say the swimming ban is a “more proactive” measure rather than a full beach closure that often occurs after shark sightings.

Videos posted online show sharks hunting seals along Great Point beach.

“Those videos are quite disturbing and no human being could survive that, we know that,” Diane Lang, the Trustees’ administrator, told the newspaper. Nantucket stream.

The policy is now there. We tell our visitors not to swim at Great Point. I have been in contact with US Fish & Wildlife and they agree completely.

“We saw people jumping into the water on the Fourth of July,” Lang said. “Visitors come out and they are naive to their surroundings.”

The population of great white sharks has grown just as the number of seals has also increased. The sharks often prey on the mammals in shallow waters.

While shark attacks on humans are extremely rare and have occurred on Nantucket, the growing shark population has now led cities to rethink their policies of what is safe for those who venture into the waters.

Now the bathing ban applies to parts of the beach.

Swimmers are still allowed in other areas of the refuge, but are advised to exercise caution. She is advised not to swim near the seal area.

The conservation agency says “there is currently no projected timeline” on how long the bathing ban will be in effect.

The seals have left the tip of the shelter known as Great Point since the shark attacks, but are expected to return.

Great Point is known to have a huge year-round seal population, although even they seem to be shocked by the shark attacks.

“I’ve seen maybe three seals since this happened,” Lang told the Current. ‘They are gone. They saw.’

As the summer heats up, the United States continues to lead the world’s number of shark attacks

Last year, the country saw 41 of 57 confirmed cases worldwide, which is a shocking 72 percent of the world total for 2022, according to the International Shark Attack file.

More specifically, Florida is by far the shark capital of the world, with 16 unprovoked non-fatal bites last year – the most attacks of any other state or place.

The district of Volusia, known as a shark hotspot, saw 44 percent of the total attacks.

New York saw the second most attacks last year, with eight in total. Hawaii was next, with a total of five bites, one of which was fatal.

However, the total global number of shark attacks last year was less than the global average of 70 cases from the previous five years. The total number of cases in the US also fell last year from the 47 reported attacks in 2021.

In addition, there were five fatal unprovoked shark bites in 2022 – two in Egypt, two in South Africa and one in Hawaii.

As of July 10, there have been seven fatal unprovoked shark attacks this year, including three in Australia and two in Egypt.

ISAF defines an unprovoked shark attack as ‘incidents in which a living human is bitten in the shark’s natural habitat without the shark being provoked by humans’.

And the nation is on track to record the most shark bites in the world again this year; it has seen 23 of the 42 reported attacks worldwide.

The New York area in particular is on high alert this summer.

Last week, a 15-year-old was attacked by a shark off Fire Island. The surfer said the shark had sunk its teeth into his left heel and toes, but they were still intact.

Three more people were bitten the following day, including a 47-year-old man who was swimming in chest-deep water off Quogue Village Beach, police said. He had cuts to his knee.

The two others, a 49-year-old man at Pines Beach and a woman at Cherry Grove, both suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Fire Island will now remain on high alert for the rest of the summer after six shark attacks in three weeks hit the area last summer.

According to ISAF, “year-to-year variability in oceanographic, socio-economic and meteorological conditions strongly influences the local abundance of sharks and humans in the water.”

Since 2000, the year 2015 holds the record for most shark attacks in a single year, with 111 unprovoked attacks.

The International Shark Attack File has recorded 1,604 unprovoked shark attacks in the US since the 16th century. The next country with the most attacks, Australia, has seen less than half that of the US, 691.

The number of annual shark attacks has increased over the past 70 years; in 1950 there were 50 reports of shark attacks worldwide and by 2020 the average number of bites per year had risen to 70.

An increase in shark sightings could indicate a healthier ecosystem, some say. Cleaner waters allow the small fish that sharks feed on to thrive. More small fish swimming closer to shore means more tail-biting sharks.