An Italian tourist has died this Friday victim of a shark attack on the island of San Andrés, in the Colombian Caribbean Sea. The man was bathing when the shark approached him and bit him on the right leg at the height of the thigh. Although he managed to escape at first and arrived at the hospital with vital signs, he eventually died from the large amount of blood lost.
A spokesman for the Government of San Andrés assures that these types of attacks are not frequent. The area, known touristically as the little pool, has precisely its crystal clear waters as one of its main attractions for tourists. The place is full of hotels and diving centers. “There are even diving plans with professionals in which you get close to sharks, but nothing has ever happened. Perhaps it could be a visiting species, “they say from the Government.
Mirla Zambrano, a 50-year-old woman who has been a certified diver for 30 years and works at a center in the area, is astonished: “We are all very surprised. It is the first time in San Andrés that a shark has attacked a tourist,” she says.
What tourists normally find in the area, says Zambrano, is small fish and large corals. “I have felt very safe all week. I took a diving course and what I saw the most were many swordfish, manta rays and corals,” says Francisco Aguado, a 27-year-old Spanish tourist who is visiting the area these days.
A video circulates on social networks in which you can see two tiger sharks in shallow waters south of San Andrés, near the beach where the tourist was swimming. “These are two large tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier), whose identification was confirmed by experts at the national level. This is one of the species with a wide distribution in the countries of the Greater Caribbean that usually stays in deep water during the day and feeds in shallow water at night. There are reports of this species throughout the archipelago. However, it is rare to see them during the day,” the authorities explain in a statement.
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Due to what happened, bathers are recommended not to enter the sea during these days. The sharks are in their habitat, the statement explains, and it is humans who disturb them. According to this official source, a resident of the area warned people of the presence of sharks before the attack.
On the other hand, experts have recalled in recent hours that of the 500 known species of sharks, only a few have ever attacked humans. “Instead, 100 million sharks are fished every year: their meat and fins are the most traded products.”
In Colombia, at least 10 species are in danger, as explained in the Red book of marine fish. “The immense biodiversity in the San Andrés Archipelago has always called the attention of those who engage in illegal fishing on the island,” indicates the World Wildlife Fund. For this reason, the Ministry of the Environment completely banned shark and ray fishing in 2017.
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