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Possible Great White Shark Sighted In Majorca, Putting Tourists On Alert

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 03:15 PST, May 5, 2015

Tourists in Majorca are re-considering entering the water, after a mysterious animal that may be a great white shark was photographed just off the coast, a few feet away from vacationers.

The unusual fish was spotted in the sea off Palmanova, according to the Mirror, as a number of tourists stopped to photograph it. Swimming just a few yards from the shore near the resort of Magaluf, the animal has set social media sites ablaze with speculation about its identity. Some are claiming the fish is a red tuna, while many are asserting that it was actually a shark. A local paper printed pictures of the animal under the headline A shark in Palmanova? though the fish’s true identity has yet to be confirmed.

One local asserted that the animal was a juvenile great white, citing the shape and size of its body. A member of a local dive club took several photographs of the large fish, the appearance of which coincides with a Bank Holiday weekend that marks the first major influx of tourists to the region following Easter.

Great white sharks can undoubtedly be found in the Mediterranean, as the Express notes, though the massive predators usually stay far from shore. As many as 90 different species of shark inhabit the Spanish Med, though attacks are exceedingly rare in the region. As the Inquisitr previously reported, sightings of blue sharks closed several beaches in the Mediterranean last year, after the predators approached shorelines in France and Spain too closely for the comfort of many swimmers.

Earlier this year, a similar situation arose in Bonita Beach, Florida, when a bull shark was filmed swimming along the edge of a resident’s backyard. Locals asserted that the actions of fishermen were responsible for drawing sharks to the region, where they have been filmed multiple times in shallow surf recently.

While shark attacks in the Mediterranean are very nearly unheard of, several notable incidents have occurred. In 1986, a windsurfer was injured by what is thought to have been a great white, which bit his leg. The limb was later amputated, and just a few years later, in 1993, another swimmer lost several toes to an unidentified shark. Described as “slender” and two-meters-long, the species of shark was never definitively identified. In 1992, a great white shark washed up on the shore near the Catalan resort of Tossa de Mar, an incident that purportedly led to a coverup among local authorities to protect tourist operations in nearby regions like Majorca.

[Image: Facebook via the Mirror]

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