Sunday, May 21, 2017

Dubai

A shark attack that left an Emirati fisherman hospitalised last week has surprised divers and fishermen - but not worried.

On May 12, Ali Mohammad Hamad Al Beloushi, 41, was on a routine morning fishing trip with his friend five nautical miles off the coast of Khor Fakkan. He made a free dive to a depth of 18 metres searching for a potential catch.

When he swam up to return to the boat, about three metres from the surface, he found his right leg clamped between a shark’s jaws.

His friend fired at the shark with a fishing gun, and Beloushi was able to free his leg. Once ashore, the injured fisherman was rushed to Khor Fakkan hospital. He was later shifted to Khalifa hospital in Abu Dhabi.

Doctors at Khalifa hospital carried out deep-cleaning and surgery on Beloushi’s leg on Monday. He is recovering at present.

“Sharks do not attack humans who are on the surface of the water,” said Hassan, the injured fisherman’s brother. “They just move around them. But if a diver provokes a shark or there is blood, the shark will attack.”

He did not say whether his sibling - who has 16 years’ experience on the seas - had done anything to provoke the attack.

Some seasoned fishermen based in Khor Fakkan said that the area has a history as home for sharks.

Masoud Ali Al Rossi, a 43-year-old Emirati fisherman and diver said that there is an island off the coast called Shark Island.

“In the past and even nowadays, sharks come to this island and lay their eggs in the coral reef,” said Al Rossi.

“We have seen a number of shark species and all of them are harmless,” he said. He could not recall an incident when either he or his colleagues had been harmed.

Just two incidents of shark attacks have been recorded in the UAE’s recent history, he said.

“This is the first time this species of shark has appeared in Khor Fakkan and attacked one of the fishermen.”

Video footage of the shark, which had been killed and hauled aboard by the two fisherman, showed that it was around two metres long. Beloushi’s brother said that it weighed around 200 kilogrammes.

“I searched for this shark species on the internet and it looks like a grey reef shark,” said Al Rossi.

Other experienced fisherman and divers interviewed had varying views of the shark species. One thought it was a Mako Shark, a type regularly blamed for attacks on humans.

Another thought it was a Copper shark, which is considered less aggressive.

Al Rossi said it was likely that the shark had been trying to take the fisherman’s catch, rather than attacking him.

“We do not get worried about such incidents and we will continue diving and fishing in the sea,” he said.

Shark sightings

Another Emirati fisherman, Hussain Mohammad Al Beloushi, 38, told Gulf News that he has been diving and fishing in the sea since 1998 and seen plenty of sharks.

“We used to spot a number of shark species like whale sharks, tiger sharks, great hammerheads, in the local waters,” he recalled.

Although rare, Great White sharks - a species made notorious by the 1975 film Jaws, about a man-eating shark - can sometimes be spotted in the local waters, Al Rossi said.

“They may be spotted only in winter, especially when they chase tuna fish that have entered the shallow shores,” he said.

In one memorable incident in January last year, a four-metre-long shark jumped onto a fisherman’s boat off the coast of Fujairah. One crewman was injured.

Authorities said that the short-fin Mako shark, locally referred to as a ‘wolf shark’ is non-aggressive and a migrant.

However, fishermen said that they had not seen those kind of sharks in the UAE waters for a long time.

“Now everybody is starting to blame the shark and becoming scared,” said Michaela Colella, an Italian scuba diving instructor who works off the coast of Khor Fakkan.

“Five or six people die from sharks every year [globally],” she added. “But remember that millions of sharks die every year from us. They normally do not attack us.”

Menace from the deep

For the handful of incidents reported worldwide when sharks do attack humans, mistaken identity on the part of the shark, or harassment on the part of the humans, were often to blame, she said.

“Or the shark has been taken on a fishing line and they are trying to protect themselves,” Colella added.

She believes that the shark had most probably mistaken the fisherman for a fish - an explanation that would be likely if the fisherman had been swimming with a catch.

“Maybe also the poor visibility in the water didn’t help the shark to understand that the man was not a prey.”

However, divers do not seem to be at all deterred by the attack.

“[The attack] isn’t a warning for us,” said Alaa Farieddine, a Lebanese instructor at the Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Divers Centre. He said that his friends and other instructors he knows are planning to dive around the area in Khor Fakkan next week.

“For us, as divers, we always say that sharks never attack you underwater, especially the kind of sharks you find here in the Gulf,” he said. “Sharks are usually not interested in human beings.”

He did, however, note the unusually large size of the shark from Friday’s attack.

“I was a little bit surprised,” he said.

SIDE BOX:

What to do?

So, what do you do if you’re in the water, and you see a shark swimming furiously towards you?

“If you want to get it away from you, just hit it one the nose with anything, for example your fist,” advises Mohammad Eisa, an Emirati instructor at the Dubai-based Royal Diving Centre.

“They will then change their direction.”

SIDE BOX TWO:

How common are shark attacks?

In the UAE, extremely rare. Fisherman can only recall two incidents in recent years when sharks attacked. Sharks are most likely to be found in the Sea of Oman, off the UAE’s east coast, and not in the Arabian Gulf. Of the roughly 400 shark species in the world, only a dozen are considered dangerous to humans.

And even then, fatal incidents are rare. In 2016, 81 shark attacks took place worldwide. Of these, just four were fatal. The year before, six people died from shark attacks.

By Aghaddir Ali Paul Crompton Staff Reporters

Gulf News 2017. All rights reserved.