Tuesday 24 June 2014

"The beautiful Brazilian beaches plagued by shark attacks"

From Shark News:

Brazil's northeast coast boasts warm waters and a bounty of fish and sea birds and it should be a haven for large fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton.

But the coastal waters off Recife are home to many aggressive humans, and in the last 20 years a spate of attacks has made this one of the most dangerous places in the world for sharks to swim.

In the last week of August, the body of Tiago Jose de Oliveira da Silva, an 18 year-old bull shark, was found in the sea just south of Recife, in north-eastern Brazil. An autopsy found he had been killed by humans. His death was the 56th shark attack in Recife in 20 years.

What is so shocking about Recife's attacks is that so many of them are fatal - 21 of the 56, a death rate of about 37%. This is much higher than the worldwide shark attack fatality rate, which is currently about 16%, according to Florida State Museum of Natural History.

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