Shark show: Disoriented blue shark causes massive beach evacuation
Beach goers at a popular tourist spot in Majorca, Spain got a close encounter with a disoriented blue shark that swam up close to the shore, causing massive evacuations.
Sunbathers at a popular tourist beach in Majorca were forced to flee the water on Thursday after a shark tried to join in on the fun.
Footage taken by lifeguards at Cala Domingos beach shows the shark — later determined to be a 10-foot blue shark — swim toward the shore as panicked onlookers gather and watch from nearby rocks. Police evacuated the water at around 3 p.m., Sky News reports.
No one was hurt during the encounter, as the shark had been in distress when it circled toward the shore, officials later found.
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The shark appeared disoriented, according to Palma Aquarium’s Recovery Center, which was eventually called in to retrieve the fish.
Guillem Felix, a veterinary nurse for the Recovery Center, said they were first notified of the shark at 3:30 p.m., but decided to wait and see if it would return to the ocean.
“We got a second call an hour later to say it had ended up writhing on the sand and the lifeguards had put it back in the water but had subsequently returned to the shoreline,” Felix told The Telegraph.
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The shark was euthanized shortly thereafter, the Diario de Mallorca reported.
An autopsy later revealed that the shark had been injured by a stingray, with one of its barbs still stuck in its snout. The resulting nerve damage made it hard for the animal to hunt and seek food, leading it to become disoriented, and eventually swim toward the shore.
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The same type of blue shark was also responsible for a similar panic on the other side of the island last year, The Telepgraph reported. In June of 2017, beach-goers spotted a shark swimming near people just off shore on two separate occasions, leading officials to temporarily close down the beach.
That shark, too, was thought to be disoriented when it came close to the shore.