Russian citizen mauled to death by tiger shark off Egypt's Red Sea coast in rare attack

[Searcaigh]

I have been attending the MENA Oceans Summit in Dubai over the past two days and this incident was discussed today during the coffee breaks and networking meetings.

Eid Al Adha is in a couple of weeks and prior to this there are many sheep transport ships sailing up the Red Sea to deposit their cargo in Saudi and Egypt.

It's a well known fact that sick animals on these vessels are dumped overboard and attract various marine life looking for an easy meal. I'm not sure that the authorities in Egypt are keen to advertise this fact or even do anything about it!

 

[Calmseas]

That is the most disturbing shark attack video i have ever seen. The guy tries like crazy to fight it off but it keeps coming again and again. The guy is left tired bobbing up and down in the water and then the shark takes one last bite of the shoulder and head and he goes under.

So sad and horrific for his family and those watching. There is no good way to deal with Shark/Human interactions. The fact is anytime you go in the water this could happen. We often told the chances are so slim we shouldn't worry about it, but seeing videos like this has me ( a life long diver) never wanting to sit around on the surface again for any reason.

 

[drrich2]

You want to perform some kind of a half assed autopsy on a fish?

The authorities would.

1.) There's a desire to establish from gut contents if this is the shark. Whether and if so to what extent a shark with a prior human kill is more of an ongoing danger aside, it provides some closure to loved ones and peace of mind (justified or not) to other people using the sea in the region.

2.) Humans tend to want to use available remains of loves ones in their funeral rituals.

3.) It reduces the motivation some may have to kill additional large tiger sharks in the area if they come across them, thinking the one already taken could be the wrong one.

4.) It's interesting to see whether there is anything visibly wrong with the shark, such as an old injury impairing the ability to hunt. I haven't heard of this with man-eating sharks, but it's a common question with man-eating big cats such as tigers.

 

[rmorgan]

Vigilantes Bludgeon Shark to Death After Shocking Attack at Beach Resort

One man clubbed the shark, which seems to still be alive, with a metal pole as a crowd of onlookers gathered.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[Knockneed Man]

The guy never stood a chance. I was sent a photo of the body, and none of the bites are exploratory - any of the ones shown would have been fatal. It looks to be a perfect body from the top of the chest down, apart from two massive bites - one on an inner thigh, and one on the opposite hip that also took the groin. From mid-chest and above the rest is completely missing. It’s obvious in the video that this was an amazingly, and awful, aggressive attack; but reinforced from the bite marks that this was a full blown hungry shark with feeding intent, and not an exploratory calf bite or a “wait and let bleed out” behavior. A terrifying thought.

 

[CuzzA]

Simply gutting the shark is all that is necessary to identify that it is the one. However, the pre attack dock video clearly shows us it was a large tiger. And on the hull truth a video was posted claiming the shark was carrying the victim around for a long time in its mouth. I'm pretty sure they got the right shark and it clearly should have been culled. It may have been desperately hungry to resort to eating a human, but I don't think tigers are all that picky and at this point, it would likely do it again having discovered this new, albeit not very good, source of energy.

 

[greeniguana]

I watched (and filmed) a massive tiger shark eating a loggerhead a couple years ago. The behavior looked quite similar.

 

[Nemrod]

Thanks!

I dove with Tiger Sharks in Tiger Beach. What DM told me was to keep eyes on them at all time, forget about the other sharks around (Lemon, Grey Reef, etc.) and be ready to punch them on their nose (or push down their tonic immobility spot) if they are approaching you. Otherwise, this what would happen to you (see the video, below).

That happened to me out of WPB on a "shark" dive. It is a long story as to how I came to be on this shark dive, way out in the Gulf Stream. There was bait in the water and a number of sharks milling about when the tiger came in up the scent trail like a freight train. It zoomed about and came straight at me and we locked eyes and it veered off and went off into the blue behind me. About then a second, smaller one came in and just as I tried to lock eyes with it the big one hit me from behind and drove me forward in the water a good distance and then passed by my left side and as it did my strobe caught in it's jaw yanking my camera to the end of the lanyard and breaking the butterfly clamp, the strobe was hanging by the optical cable.

I am not going to watch the video, too distressing. I am very much wishing for solace for the family and friends of this fellow water person.

 

[tarponchik]

That happened to me out of WPB on a "shark" dive. It is a long story as to how I came to be on this shark dive, way out in the Gulf Stream. There was bait in the water and a number of sharks milling about when the tiger came in up the scent trail like a freight train. It zoomed about and came straight at me and we locked eyes and it veered off and went off into the blue behind me. About then a second, smaller one came in and just as I tried to lock eyes with it the big one hit me from behind and drove me forward in the water a good distance and then passed by my left side and as it did my strobe caught in it's jaw yanking my camera to the end of the lanyard and breaking the butterfly clamp, the strobe was hanging by the optical cable.

I am not going to watch the video, too distressing. I am very much wishing for solace for the family and friends of this fellow water person.

Such a situation as yours is probably unavoidable. The "keep your eyes on the tigers" rule is very reasonable and quite possibly saved some lives. However, you can only keep your eyes on those tigers that you know are here, and you won't know if a newcomer approaches you from behind or from above. In any case, there must be a limit of how many tigers you can keep your eyes on, so when more than 2 show up it gets complicated. So the proper reading is "keep your eyes on the tigers, if you can".

 

[Dan]

That happened to me out of WPB on a "shark" dive. It is a long story as to how I came to be on this shark dive, way out in the Gulf Stream. There was bait in the water and a number of sharks milling about when the tiger came in up the scent trail like a freight train. It zoomed about and came straight at me and we locked eyes and it veered off and went off into the blue behind me. About then a second, smaller one came in and just as I tried to lock eyes with it the big one hit me from behind and drove me forward in the water a good distance and then passed by my left side and as it did my strobe caught in it's jaw yanking my camera to the end of the lanyard and breaking the butterfly clamp, the strobe was hanging by the optical cable.

I am not going to watch the video, too distressing. I am very much wishing for solace for the family and friends of this fellow water person.

My video is not that bad at all. No one was injured. The Tiger Shark was sneaking behind a diver and test bit his shiny tank when he was not looking at the Shark. He flinched. DM pushed the Shark away from the diver. The lesson learnt here is to keep eyes on the Tiger Shark at all time and forget about the other sharks around.

Your experience is more distressing than my video. I'm glad you came out unharmed.

Tiger Sharks that I have encountered are generally sneaky. They'll come out of no where. You need to keep you head on a swivel. One occasion when I was in Cocos swimming with my dive buddies, something telling me to look to my right and there was a Tiger Shark about to get too close to me. As soon as I pointed my GoPro to it, it swam away. I caught it in the video, below.