BENISSA – The sea gave a special gift to a diver from the diving school Club Náutico de les Bassetes in Benissa on Wednesday. He discovered a two-metre-long shark in the morning. Since the animal was dead, the diver was more surprised than shocked.
Yet seeing a shark is always impressive, also for this diver. The sea must have carried the shark’s corpse to the rocky shore. And, according to local media, many curious people came to see the impressive animal with their own eyes.
Also read: Disoriented shark close to beach in Catalonia
It was a blue shark. Those in charge of the yacht club notified the Oceanogràfic in Valencia so that researchers from the institute could come and collect the shark’s body to perform the autopsy in the hope of determining the cause of death.
Blue shark
The blue shark (Prionace glauca) is a species common in the Mediterranean Sea. The population is categorised as “vulnerable” by the IUCN. According to research, the blue shark population has experienced a 96% decline in numbers and 99% in biomass over the past 50 years. The distribution of the blue shark in the Mediterranean is strongly related to environmental factors. Moreover, the probability of the shark’s presence increases from east to west.
13 Attacks on humans by a blue shark
Although the chances of becoming a victim of an attack by a blue shark are extremely low, according to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), there have been 13 attacks over time. Four of these have been fatal. However, rest assured, those attacks were not nearby. All these attacks were in Asia, namely 2 in Japan, 1 in Samoa and 1 in the Andaman Islands, a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal.
Also read: Fishing for protected sharks as a tourist attraction in Lanzarote
