On Friday, a 21-year-old Deland man was bitten by a shark at New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
The man was surfing near the south jetty area when the shark attacked him, causing non-life-threatening injuries to his foot. He was rushed to the hospital by the Volusia County Emergency Medical Services.
This marks the second shark bite this year in the county, which is known as the “shark bite capital of the world”, having seen seven shark bites last year, down from 17 in 2021. Florida had 16 of the 57 unprovoked shark bites in the world last year, with many of them occurring in Volusia.
Recently, a 12-year-old girl from Philadelphia was bitten by a shark in Cocoa Beach, Florida, sustaining over 50 stitches in her leg. She had gone to the beach with her family for a gymnastics competition and was seen dripping in blood after her father pulled her out of the water. She needed a wheelchair while her leg healed.
In response to five shark attacks around July 4, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced the deployment of 60 drones to the state’s beaches. This $1 million plan is intended to protect against dangerous shark encounters. According to Hochul, there was only one shark encounter in 2012, compared to eight a decade later.