It’s official. Summer has arrived.
We have the first ‘killer shark’ story of the season!
In a scene straight out of ‘Jaws’ a fisherman off the coast of St Ives has claimed that his wooden boat was attacked by a wannabe man-eating shark.
As it swam away, the man and some ither fishermen identified it as an Oceanic Whitetip Shark, a species of shark famed for feeding frenzies around shipwrecks and plane crashes (e.g. The USS Indianopolis).
So do we need to panic? Is there a killer shark off the Westcountry Coast?
Experts claim it’s unlikely that one of these sharks would come here. Apparently our water is too cold.
Another cry for calm came from the Mayor of St Ives (who unfortunately appeared to be channeling the Mayor of Amity Island): ‘There is no immediate danger. Sea creatures do tend to come and go so it has probably just blown off course’.
It’s well known that sharks are effected by the wind. Oh yes.
So will this shark sighting join the 2005 Mako sightings and 2008 Great White scare in the dustbin of history, or is a killer shark of our coast something else to thank Global Warming for?
