Copyright nypost
The father of four who was killed by sharks while snorkeling solo off the coast of Israel in April was attacked by a school of dusky sharks, which are typically harmless to humans, according to researchers. Barak Tzach, who lived near Tel Aviv with his family, was captured on video being dragged out to sea by a shiver of sharks — and he tried in vain to push the advancing predators away with his GoPro stick. Witnesses at the beach in Hadera told local outlets that they heard him shouting for help before he was yanked under. Soon after, the water was stained red. Months after the fatal attack, a group of scientists determined that Tzach’s death was the first known instance of the docile dusky shark ever killing a human being, according to a report published in the journal Ethology. The scientists used a cluster of Tzach’s human remains discovered a day after his death to confirm that he was “devoured by ‘several’ sharks.” But the study, published on Aug. 16, asserted that the sharks weren’t entirely to blame. Researchers wrote that the atypical attack was likely spurred by external factors, including human error and ecological distortion. They added that the animals’ instincts also likely kicked in during the feeding frenzy. Dusky sharks, despite their imposing 13-foot length, are usually timid and make great efforts to avoid humans. They’re common in the waters off of Hadera, a city north of Tel Aviv, because of the tepid temperatures. The coastal waters are also popular amongst locals for the same reason. The dusky sharks tend to linger even into the winter, as the locals tend to both feed them and provide ample waste for them to munch on when prey is sparse. It’s not uncommon for the sharks to approach divers in search of snacks. An increasingly competitive food environment could’ve pushed the shiver that attacked Tzach to grow frustrated if he didn’t offer any handouts, scientists wrote. “The competition for access to the food resource overrides the species’ usual behaviour, including the intrinsic non-instinctive nature of the (human) prey,” they wrote. “The situation likely occurred via a process of juxtaposition bites, with two distinct motivations: the first, a (probably single) reflex/clumsiness bite driven by food begging, and the second, several predatory bites triggered by a feeding frenzy.” Scientists suggested that the most effective way to change the dusky sharks’ erratic behavior would be to “eliminate the begging” — by banning the public from feeding the predators. “Any other measure could be complementary, but undeniably less relevant than this approach,” the researchers concluded.
