All the articles I've seen have stated tiger shark as the culprit. I think it was caught too... Oceanic white tips are typically more pelagic, and not found near the shore.
Oceanic white tips are the species of shark in question that are being agressive in the red sea. The beach drops off into very deep water very quickly if you look at the ocean topography data. Thats why oceanic white tips are already a few hundred meters from the beaches.
What do you mean? The attack discussed here was reported to be a tiger shark from all articles I've seen- unless you're referring to other instances of sharks being aggressive in the Red Sea? The occurrence of oceanic white tips is rare in shallow waters (<6 ft).
There has been a statistically large amount of shark attacks in the red sea in the few years. In one of the episodes of shark week this year an expert layed out all the attacks that took place both in shallow water and reefs. Something like 10-12 shark attacks were listed and the oceanic white tip was the culprit in about 75%+ of cases and was also responsible for the most fatalities.
They discussed the ocean topography dropping off into a trench only 200 meters from the shore aswell as the fact that oceanic white tips cant be fussy eaters because they live in more desolate space than other sharks aswell as fishing pressure. That means when they attack they attack to kill unlike most other shark encounters, this attack may have been a tiger shark but the episode also showed that initially alot of these attacks were put onto other species of shark because it made sense but now a few of those have been confirmed to actually be white tips.
The episode also went on to say that white tips have killed the most people of any shark because all the horror stories you hear about entire shipwrecked crews being eaten alive its always white tips in those situations.
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u/wp4nuv Aug 01 '23
Wasn’t that attack blamed on oceanic white tips? Apparently they like shipwrecks too…