Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Deadly shark terror shuts Spanish beach
Swimmers cleared as killer stalks shoreline
JUST as you thought it was safe to hit the Med for some holiday sun – a lethal shark has been spotted cruising for prey off the Spanish coast.
The 6ft-long mako, a member of the fastest shark species on the planet, was seen off Zahara de los Atunes on the Costa de la Luz yesterday.
The sighting forced the beach to close and the sea was declared off-limits to sunbathers for nearly an hour and a half.
Coastguards managed to coax the predator away from the shoreline before the beach was reopened.
The mako is a type of mackerel shark classed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The one spotted off Spain is thought to have been a shortfin mako, which is capable of deadly attacks.
The International Shark Attack File, curated by Florida Museum of Natural History, records the species as being responsible for at least one fatal attack on a person and several more which resulted in injury. Most attacks involving makos are said to have happened when they were being “harassed” or after being caught on a fishing line.
The longfin mako, a rarer species, has not been linked to any attacks on humans but their teeth and size make them potentially dangerous.
In May a daredevil swimmer was seen getting up close to a huge shark in a spectacular video filmed off the coast of
Malaga. He appeared to have no qualms about being within inches of the animal as it glided past him in the water with its tell-tale fin showing.
The May 22 sighting was the third in less than a month of a plankton-eating basking shark in Spain’s southern waters.
Experts say they are harmless to humans. But police warned kayakers and other watersports enthusiasts not to approach when a 26ft long basking
shark was spotted a week earlier cruising off La Mamola beach on the Costa Tropical further east.
Also in May a member of Spain’s Paralympic swimming team was filmed outsprinting two sharks after a terrifying encounter on the Costa Brava.
Ariel Schrenck went up a gear after hearing his mum shouting from the shore when she spotted two tell-tale fins slicing through the water towards him.
Ariel, part of the Spanish team that took part in last year’s World Para Swimming Allianz Championships in London, was in training at the time.
The predators the 19-year-old managed to escape from are thought to have been tintoreras or blue sharks.
They have been blamed in the past for attacks on holidaymakers, including one in Elche near Alicante in July 2016.
The 40-year-old victim was rushed from the beach to hospital and given stitches to a wound in his hand.