NASSAU — A 58-year-old Pennsylvania woman died in a shark attack in The Bahamas on Tuesday, police said.
The woman and her family, who were passengers on Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas, were visiting New Providence for the day when they booked an excursion.
The tour company took the family to Green Cay, which is about a half mile (800 meters) northwest of Rose Island, where a 21-year-old American woman was killed in a shark attack in 2019.
“The family was reportedly snorkeling in waters and that area is known for visitors to snorkel,” police said. “It is further reported that family members observed a bull shark attacking the female.”
The incident occurred at a popular snorkeling spot near Green Cay in the northern Bahamas, police spokeswoman Chief Superintendent Chrislyn Skippings told The Associated Press.
“It’s unfortunate,” she said.
Skippings said the woman’s family identified it as a bull shark.
Police said family members and tour company employees rescued the victim.
She was subsequently brought to mainland New Providence where she was declared dead, police reported, adding that she had sustained injuries to her upper body.
Royal Caribbean International said in a statement to the Associated Press that the person died after arriving at a local hospital for treatment and that the company is helping their loved ones. They said the guest was participating in an independent shore excursion in Nassau and had been sailing on Harmony of the Seas, which is on a seven-night trip after departing Florida on Sunday.
The incident comes a month after an eight-year-old British boy survived an attack by three sharks in The Bahamas last month.
The majority of shark attacks in the Caribbean have occurred in the Bahamas, with two reported in 2019, one of them fatal. That incident involved a Southern California woman who was on vacation and was attacked by three sharks near Rose Island, located just a half mile from where Tuesday’s attacked occurred.
In December 2020, a fatal shark attack was reported in the French Caribbean territory of St. Martin, the first such incident in our region.
Overall, at least 32 shark attacks have been reported in the Bahamas since 1749, followed by 13 attacks in Cuba during that time period, including one in 2019, according to the Florida-based International Shark Attack File.
Michael Heithaus, a marine biologist at Florida International University in Miami, said in a phone interview that the high number of attacks in the Bahamas is likely linked to the fact that there are a lot of people in the water in that area and that it has a robust marine ecosystem.
He said the Bahamas has a variety of shark species, the majority of which do not pay attention to people, except for bull sharks and tiger sharks.
“They get to very large sizes, and they eat big prey,” Heithaus said, adding that sharks have incredible sensory systems and can be attracted to food, sounds and smells in the water.
But overall, shark attacks remain rare, he stressed.
Worldwide, there were 137 shark attacks last year, 73 of them unprovoked, according to the International Shark Attack File.
—REUTERS, The Associated Press
Reporting by Danica Coto in Puerto Rico, Jasper Williams; Additional reporting by Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Sandra Maler
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