Three people attacked by sharks in Florida and Texas

By Liya Cui

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sharks attacked three people on beaches in Texas and Florida on Thursday at the start of the Independence Day weekend, authorities said, adding to a growing list of such incidents in the United States this summer.

A 21-year-old Ohio man was bitten on the foot while standing in knee-deep water in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, said Tamra Malphurs, acting director of Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue. He was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

The same day on South Padre Island on the Texas Gulf Coast, four people encountered a shark and two were bitten, according to a news release from Texas Parks and Wildlife. Both victims were taken to a hospital, but their conditions were unknown.

There have been 28 reported shark attacks in the U.S. so far this year, according to the website Tracking Sharks. At least three other attacks in addition to Thursday’s attacks have occurred since June 2, including a California man who was injured by a great white shark and a man in Hawaii who was killed by a shark.

Three women were injured by what authorities believe was a bull shark in Walton County, Florida, the state where shark attacks are most frequent, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File.

The museum found that unprovoked shark attacks and deaths worldwide increased slightly in 2023, when there were a total of 69 attacks, 10 of which were fatal.

The US had the highest number of incidents last year, with 36 attacks and two deaths. The number of shark attacks has shown a downward trend since spiking in 2021, with 47 attacks, the highest ever recorded by the museum.

Gavin Naylor, director of the shark research program at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said that while numbers can fluctuate year to year, reported shark bites have decreased slightly decade over decade. He attributes the trend to commercial fishing reducing global shark populations.

“But the number of people on beaches continues to increase. And as some more shark populations start to recover, I think in the next 10 years we could see an increase in incidents,” Naylor said.

(Reporting by Liya Cui; Editing by David Gregorio)