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Just heard of a fatal shark attack at Orient today

In front of La Playa

Wow. Are you on island?

No I saw it on Facebook SXM or bust a member watched it front of them

Here's a link. https://www.facebook.com/LePelicanjournal/posts/3820039661348775
Never heard of a shark attack at Orient Bay!

Is it ok to post link ?
Article

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We were there. About 2:30 someone runs up to club o telling Cedric to get everyone out of the water. I think he said it was a leg bite.

Link to SXM News

How awful..

Wow. Scary.

I think about that everytime I go in the water at club o. May she RIP! And people still feed the fish!

Yes very sad indeed.

This is so sad---Prayers for her family.

Ditto to what Bluejacket said above ... never heard of a shark attack in or around Orient Beach. Just smaller fish nipping at people. But, a lone shark attack can happen anywhere at any time. It will imperative to see if other attacks occur in the upcoming weeks. BTW, the Facebook link is in French, but I got through it okay.

French side beaches closed for 48 hours

we were on the beach when it happened. Seemed to be pretty far out from the beach. We were warned from swimming . A boat seamed to be doing a grid search maybe for the shark.

Yeah, it seems it was far from the beach. But historically a lot of people swim to Green Cay. Really sad....

There are tiger sharks off shore in those waters on both sides of island.

Actually, we have seen many small baby sharks down by the water sports area where the hobe cat were. So where there are babies, there are mommas.

Wow. I’ve seen barracudas out there, but never a shark (and I’m one of those occasional Green Key swimmers). But with the oceans warming, sharks are moving in newer territories. Still, such attacks remain very rare.

So sad for this woman however. My thoughts to her loved ones.

The person from the Nature Foundation said they "would be extremely surprised" if it was confirmed to be a shark attack. Not sure what other explanation there could be?

How horrible for the woman's family and friends.

I wondered about that statement as well.

She could have been hit by a passing boat prop....

Possibility, but so far, there has been no mention of that. Very different wounds and should show when the autopsy is done.

We were also on the beach yesterday. The word was that it was a tiger shark and there may have been turtles near the paddle boarder. Gendarmes cleared the water of swimmers. There were not many boats out in the area near Green Cay so I don't think it would have been caused by a boat prop. One of the bar owners said there was a shark attack in 2018.

According to the article last known attack was in 2014 with a scuba diver feeding a shark on a dive excursion. Nothing was said about paddle boarding and turtles in water. Where did this information come from?

It was part of some of the original news about this attack yesterday. I read the same thing then but not sure if it was fact or assumptions at that time.

Shark attacks happen, it is not like Orient Beach is closed off from the Ocean. Very sad way to lose your life swimming and with NO Lifeguards looking out for sharks or drowning victims. Always swim with a buddy and keep your eyes open.

Paddle boarding is a tad different from "swimming 100 yds out"

Very sad news

We were on the beach at La Playa when the attack occurred. We didn't see the actual attack, but people sitting near us did. The woman was swimming, not paddle boarding. If you recall the trampoline that Bikini Watersports has in the water, she had swum out to that. It was much farther out than it usually is, as no one is using it; they pull it closer to shore if they have customers. We also doubted at the time that it was a shark attack, but that seems to be the most likely thing at this point.

It's confirmed shark attack.

https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islan...bay-swimmer-died-from-shark-attack-bites

Being at the beach when it happened is right out of the movie Jaws.

And if I read correctly, the French beaches are now closed until Wednesday? I hope the shark knows he apparently isn’t allowed on the Dutch side since we’ve not heard of any beach closures there.......

This is truly just what the island didn’t need on top of all the other problems..

Deepest and most sincere condolences to the family and friends of the young woman who died.

Yes, just like Covid, the sharks wont cross the border.

Another example where a “one island mentality” makes more sense.

I can see some folks angry at the french closure and going to mullet for the day instead thinking it is safer to go in the water.

duuuunnnn duun... duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn

The shark is probably long gone. Posted by The Nature Foundation : https://www.facebook.com/naturefoundationsxm/

As expressed in our previous statement we extend our deepest condolences to the friends and family members of the woman who died on Orient Bay beach. We are very saddened to hear about this accident and that the cause of her death is due to a shark.
Human fatalities due to shark bites are very rare and none were recorded before this accident on St. Maarten. No one will know the reason why this shark bite occurred causing the young woman to loose her life, however we do want to stress that sharks are not killing machines. Rare accidents like this one, can happen, however most sharks are harmless and an important contributor of the health of our marine ecosystem.
According to the French authorities the cause of the accident is suspected to be a large tiger shark, especially large tiger sharks are migratory species travelling great distances in a single day. It is extremely likely that this shark already disappeared into the deep ocean, besides sharks are not known to re-bite when mistakenly have bitten a human, humans are not food they consume.
The Nature foundation thinks a swimming ban is not deemed necessary and will only create additional fear among the population, of course those individuals who decide not to swim are being respected.
Sharks are still wild animals and top predators, they survive due to their predatory skills, therefore accidents like this may occasionally happen. However, bites are often mistaken identities by the shark, the shark is confused or curious as splashing water can make them to investigate the situation. There is no evidence that sharks are hunting humans or in any case eating them, although we are a very easy meal for them to catch. You would be surprised how often people are in the water with sharks, but they just ignored the humans. It is actually surprising how few shark accidents happen considering how many people worldwide enter their habitat every day, the ocean itself takes much more lives due to for example drowning (and that stopped no one from swimming in our waters). But this is not a reason to not mourn the loss of this young woman's life, as we are shocked and saddened by this accident.
We are aware of the occurrence of tiger sharks around St. Maarten and in the Caribbean region, especially juvenile tiger sharks are recorded in our waters and tagged. The larger ones are passing by on their journey through the Caribbean region, but spend most of their time offshore in deeper waters, such as close to drop offs, for example at the Saba Bank. On that location the Nature Foundation, Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance and Saba Conservation Foundation have tagged and researched large tiger sharks, these larger ones are hardly recorded close to shore.
World-wide in 2019 there were a total of 5 fatalities due to shark bites, none close to this region. Therefore we ask everyone to not let themselves be driven by fear as most sharks are still harmless. Sharks are not out there to kill us, otherwise no one would be able to swim in our waters, sharks are key species for the marine ecosystem and their presence is vital.
We would like to remind the public that sharks are a protected species in Dutch St. Maarten waters and cannot be hunted, caught or killed.

The Nature Foundation initially stated the attack was NOT from a shark attack.
Then the Nature Foundation stated the attack was a "shark bite", when in actuality this attack took "an arm, one piece of her leg and she had multiple bites on her body" according to french authorities.
The Nature Foundation's further statement that “the bite was by mistake“, makes no sense whatsoever.

The Nature Foundation has some serious back peddling to do, in order to retain any semblance of credibility.

Tiger sharks can be very aggressive and are known for eating anything. As soon as I heard about this attack I figured it was a Tiger. My wife and I had a run in with one while spearfishing 30 miles off the gulf coast of Florida in 80 feet of water. We had just gotten to the bottom, and did not have any dead fish with us. It was only interested in us. It circled us closer and closer on our ascent, to the point where I was jabbing it with my speargun. I have had many shark encounters while spearfishing and only twice did I actually feel like I was being hunted. One was with the Tiger, and the other a large aggressive Bull shark.

As others have stated, sharks are everywhere, and most of the time go unnoticed. They are constantly spotted on the beaches here in Florida and are constantly moving. Particularly the large ones like this Tiger. We're hoping to be on Orient beach early in 2021 and I won't hesitate to go swimming. I will definitely keep a better look out for dark shadows in the water though.

Did it rain alot the day of or day before?

There was a rare attack near our lodging on Maui in 2004. The rain runoff from the island hills murkies up the water a bit and led to a tiger killing an experience, older surfer.

As one said they like to bite anything at first and dont necessarily like humans but aometimes the bite is enough to lose blood.