By: Staff Writer
January 19, 2024
A 10-year-old boy from Maryland was bitten by a shark while on vacation in the Bahamas on Monday.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force said the attack occurred around 4 p.m. local time on Monday during an “expedition in a shark tank,” at the Atlantis, Paradise Island resort. The resort could not be reached for comment.
It is said that shark tank expeditions are common for the Atlantis as tourists and guests often pay guides for these tank tours.
Atlantis has a “world famous” aquarium on its property that has underground caverns and lagoons where tourists can feed various marine life including sharks, dolphins and stingrays.
The Atlantis Paradise Island offers a snorkeling program in which patrons can get “alongside sleek sharks, spotted rays, and brilliantly colored tropical fish in this underwater setting.”
Michael and Tori Massie told NBC News they were in the tank at Atlantis Paradise Island when the boy was bitten; they were taking part in an underwater encounter called “Walking with the Sharks,” run by an outside company. It was described on the resort’s website as “easy and fun” allowing visitors to “see Caribbean reef sharks and nurse sharks up close,” but the experience appears to have been removed from the site since the incident.
At first, the Massies said the experience — led by guides — was serene and peaceful. “Once the little boy came down, it just kind of took a dark turn,” Tori Massie said. “We saw the sharks hone in on him and then just like a pool of blood afterwards.”
This is the second shark attack in The Bahamas in as many months as a 44-year-old female from Boston was attacked less than a mile off the shore of New Providence island, where the Bahamian capital of Nassau is located in December.
A male relative who was in the water with her was uninjured.
There were 57 unprovoked shark attacks recorded last year globally, according to International Shark Attack File.
The calls to do more to control the shark population in The Bahamas is growing louder, with some saying that the country should “ban” chumming, a form of baiting sharks with bloody meat. Researchers often do this to lure the sharks so they can study them. Others have called for the re-imposition of shark hunting, which was banned in the country roughly ten years ago.