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Shark In Condo Pool? A nearly dead blacktip shark was found swimming in a pool at a Palm Beach County condo last week.
A live five-foot blacktip shark was found last week in the pool of the Mariner’s Cay condominium in Hypoluxo, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Wildlife officers removed the shark from the pool and released it into the Intracoastal Waterway.
The woman who discovered the shark said she saw two young men running from the pool. Video surveillance cameras were found around the pool area.
According to the report, the incident is under investigation.
Blacktip sharks are cosmopolitan in tropical to subtropical coastal, shelf, and island waters. In the Atlantic during their seasonal migration they range from Nova Scotia to Brazil, but their center of abundance is in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.
They occur throughout the Mediterranean and along the central West coast of Africa. In the Pacific they range from Southern California to Peru, including the Sea of Cortez. They occur at the Galapagos Islands, Hawaii, Tahiti, and other South Pacific Islands, to the North coast of Australia. In the Indian Ocean they range from South Africa and Madagascar up to the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, throughout India’s coast, and east to the coast of China.
The International Shark Attack File (ISAF) indicates that blacktip sharks are historically responsible for 28 unprovoked attacks on humans around the world. Attacks were reported in the United States (Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Alabama), the Caribbean (Bahamas and British Virgin Islands), and South Africa. None of these attacks ended in fatality, but commonly resulted in relatively minor bite wounds. Blacktip sharks are responsible for roughly 16% of the attacks that occur in Florida waters, often striking surfers.
The blacktip shark is currently managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service as a large coastal species in the Atlantic shark fishery. U.S. Catch rates have fluctuated over recent years, but reached a peak in commercial landings in 2000 in the U.S. southeast Atlantic shark fishery. The majority of the catch has been of adult sharks above their minimum reproductive size, which is a good indicator that this species may currently be managed in a sustainable fashion.
Agencies/Canadajournal
