BAHAMAS (Commonwealthunion)_ According to authorities, a shark killed a U.S. cruise ship passenger who was snorkelling in the waters near the Bahamas on Tuesday.
According to police spokeswoman Chief Superintendent Chrislyn Skippings, the incident, which took place at a popular snorkelling spot near to Green Cay in the northern Bahamas, involved a 58-year-old Pennsylvania woman. The woman’s relatives discovered it to be a bull shark, according to Skippings.
According to a statement from Royal Caribbean International, the person passed away after being admitted to a nearby hospital for treatment, and the business is assisting their loved ones. They claimed that the passenger had been traveling on Harmony of the Seas, which left Florida on Sunday, and had been taking part in an independent shore excursion in Nassau.
Authorities have not publicly identified the woman, but Caroline DiPlacido, an alumna and current employee at Gannon University, a private Catholic institution in Erie, Pennsylvania, has. She coordinated projects for the Office of Community and Government Relations on the Erie campus, according to the university.
According to the university, Caroline “cherished many family links to Gannon and was a compelling presence of generosity and friendliness to employees, students, and the larger community.” She will be missed, and the news is sad.
She is survived, according to the school, by her mother, husband, and three kids.
With two documented incidents in 2019, one of them fatal, the Bahamas has seen the most of shark attacks in the Caribbean. On Rose Island, just a half-mile away from where the incident on Tuesday took place, three sharks attacked a Southern California woman who was on vacation. In December 2020, a fatal shark attack took place on the French Caribbean Island of St. Martin.
The International Shark Attack File, based in Florida, estimates that since 1749 there have been at least 32 shark attacks documented in the Bahamas, followed by 13 incidents in Cuba, including one in 2019.
According to Michael Heithaus, a marine biologist at Florida International University in Miami, the high frequency of attacks in the Bahamas is probably related to the region’s dense population of swimmers and healthy marine habitat. With the exception of bull sharks and tiger sharks, he claimed that the Bahamas are home to a range of shark species, the majority of which are unconcerned with humans. Heithaus noted that sharks can be drawn to food, sounds, and smells in the sea and that they grow to very enormous sizes and consume large prey.
However, he added, shark attacks are still rather rare in general. Worldwide, there were 137 shark attacks last year, 73 of which were unprovoked, according to the International Shark Attack File.
