DECRYPTION – As two women died in Egypt following a shark attack, the change in behavior of sharks arises. What do the specialists think?
The shark still remains an enigma for man. Last Sunday, the Egyptian government announced the death of two vacationers while bathing in the Red Sea. One of the attacks was filmed and posted on social media, where a woman can be seen struggling to reach the coast in a pool of blood. And these moments captured by smartphones are multiplying on social networks: we can discover other attacks, scares, or even simply sharks strolling between surfers, without anyone suspecting their presence. Already victims of bad publicity – after the famous film jaws – these videos still make headlines and scare their audience. But why do we see so many sharks so close to the coast? Has this phenomenon been observed by shark specialists?
A little over two weeks ago, Geo published an article based on a study by the University of Miami, which claims that sharks are moving closer to cities. The researchers observed the behavior of three species of sharks: the bull shark, the nurse shark and the hammerhead shark. They report that the sharks observed tended to be attracted to human activities near the shore. For Éric Clua, professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, specialist in sharks, this result is not surprising. He was able to make the same observation in New Caledonia: “At the time, I was based in Noumea and we had made the same observation with tiger sharks. We noticed that the tagged sharks passed near the beach of Noumea almost every day, without anyone seeing them».
However, seeing more sharks does not mean that there are more, says Éric Clua…
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