A veteran shark analyst who investigated a shark attack so clear you can hear the screams has warned tourists not to wear jewellery in the sea.
Diver Dan White, from Aldershot, Hampshire, caught the horrifying moment a shark attacked while diving 40 miles off the coast of Egypt in 2018.
A diver can be heard screaming during the whitetip shark attack in footage shown on the new BBC documentary Why Sharks Attack.
Advert
Things took a horrifying turn when several divers swimming in the same area joined White’s group.
Nour Farid, of the Red Sea conversation group HEPCA, believes there were too many divers around the shark when it struck.
Nour said: “If you watch that video, there are too many divers around when the shark had a go.
“There’s more people than ever before in the Red Sea which means there’s more probability a shark comes and bites someone. It’s simple.
“We did a calculation of a specific dive site in a specific area and the sustainable number of dives should have been between 25,000 to 30,000 a year. When we counted we found there were more than 250,000 dives.”
Dan retold the scary encounter to the BBC’s doc, explaining: “It bit into the diver's leg, latched on, thrashed around and ended up going over almost like a cartwheel.
“It was crazy, it wouldn't let go for what felt like forever. It ended up tearing his calf muscle completely off his leg."
The diver survived after being issued first aid on the boat.
Expert Collier is now advising holidaymakers to avoid wearing jewellery and bright swimwear, which could glint and attract sharks who mistake it for fish.
Experts like Collier are now also issuing warnings that the number of shark attacks in the Egyptian holiday hotspot and elsewhere could spike.
They believe overfishing and climate change are causing the hungry predators to look in shallow water for food.
In 2022 two people were mauled to death within a couple of days and last month a 23-year-old Russian tourist was killed by a pregnant tiger shark as he swam at Hurghada.
Nour spoke to the documentary about the pregnant shark's autopsy.
“There were no leftovers of fish in the shark’s stomach," he said. "We see this shark went for feeding and not just because it just, like. bumped into somebody or something on the surface.”
Nour is calling for a Red Sea fishing ban to restore depleted fish levels and allow sharks to eat.
Globally, the number of shark attacks has remained between 80 and 120 for more than ten years - despite the number of sharks declining.
Topics: Animals, Sharks, Travel, Shark Attacks
Amelia Jones