Africa

Home page

Africa

Egypt calls off shark search and opens beaches

13 December 2010 23:47 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Tourists at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh are to be allowed back into the sea after a search for the sharks behind a string of attacks on swimmers was formally abandoned, APA reports quoting â€œThe Telegraphâ€.
Acting on the advice of leading international shark experts, the Egyptian authorities said swimming and snorkelling would resume as soon as hotels adopted safety measures to protect their guests.
Beaches at the country’s premier Red Sea resort were closed a week ago after a German tourist was killed by an oceanic whitetip shark.
The 70-year-old woman was the fifth holiday maker to be attacked in under a week, and her death came after swimming had been declared safe following the capture of two sharks in the waters off the resort.
Egyptian officials said they had learned from their mistakes by placing the emphasis on safety rather than on identifying the culprits.
Instead, hotels have been instructed to build watchtowers along the shoreline to monitor shark activity, while boats and divers will conduct patrols out at sea.
Tourists will also be required to swim only in designated areas. Such strategies have been successfully implemented in the United States following shark attacks.
Scientists said there was no point in trying to hunt and kill the sharks, which should return to their natural habitat far out to sea of their own accord.
"To catch that animal, you are going to have to find it first," said George Burgess, curator of the International Shark Attack File in Florida.
"That’s a lot of expenditure in human time. But in the end what have you got? Sure, you have some retribution for what it did but you have no assurance it was going to do it again and no assurance that its mates won’t do it again."
The sharks are believed to have been drawn close to shore by a combination of unnatural factors, including the jettisoning of dead sheep from a cargo ship passing nearby.