A Canadian tourist on holiday lost her hands when she tried to take a picture with a six-foot shark at a beach in Turks and Caicos.
The 55-year-old victim tried to “engage with the animal from the shallows in an attempt to take photographs,” according to the Turks and Caicos Department of Environment and Coastal Resources.
The woman was just offshore when the six-foot shark bit her arms; the tourist’s husband swiftly tried to scare the shark away.
The New York Post wrote:
The victim, who has not been publicly identified, had to have one arm amputated below the wrist and the other halfway up her forearm, according to the Herald. She was flown back to Canada for additional treatment.
Authorities have not determined the species of shark that bit her but said it appears to have been a bull shark.
Local reports suggested the shark species was a bull shark.
“The shark was estimated to be approximately 6ft [1.83m] in length. However, the species is yet to be confirmed. It has been determined that the tourist had attempted to engage with the animal from the shallows in an attempt to take photographs,” local authorities said.
Shark attacks have reportedly been rare in Turks and Caicos, with only one reported incident last year.
“Some people believe feeding sharks is great for business or will increase tips from customers, and some even mistakenly believe that conditioning sharks to take speared lionfish will somehow teach them to hunt lionfish out of reef crevices. But teaching sharks to take food from divers only really endangers both humans and sharks,” the Cayman authorities warned.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
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