British Honeymooner Killed: Shark attack

The couple had only been married for two weeks

A hunt has been launched for a rogue shark after a British man was killed in an attack while on honeymoon in the Seychelles.The Foreign Office confirmed the death of Ian Martin Redmond, from Lancashire, on the islands.The 30-year-old was believed to have been attacked by a 6ft shark as he swam off Anse Lazio beach, on the island of Paslin.A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed the death of Mr Redmond and said: "We are providing consular assistance to the next of kin."A local restaurateur told Sky News: "I heard an ambulance was coming to the beach and I went around and saw somebody on the floor and I asked a policeman and he said it was a shark attack."

The location is regularly voted as one of the best beaches in the world but it was the second fatal shark attack, after a 36-year-old French tourist was killed there on August 2.A Seychelles government minister chaired an emergency meeting last night to discuss the freak attacks and later released a statement announcing a swimming ban."With immediate effect, the Seychelles Maritime Safety Administration has issued a temporary ban on swimming or entering the water in certain bays of the island of Praslin and islands off the coast of Praslin following two fatal shark attacks this month in the northwest area of the island."They are the first fatal attacks around the small Indian Ocean nation for almost 50 years, prompting speculation the deaths were the result of a single rogue shark.Australian research scientist Dr Jonathan Werry told Sky News that environmental conditions can affect shark behaviour."They have specific drivers, generally physical or biological drivers, that coincide with their movement into a coastal area."An in many cases when you look at an attack there are other features that have correlated and led to that attack."An employee at the four-star La Reserve hotel confirmed the latest victim was staying there with his wife.It is believed Mr Redmond was snorkelling some 20 yards from the shore while his wife stayed on the beach.Authorities launched a hunt for the shark and cautioned beachgoers in other areas about swimming dangers.

 

"We haven't had a reliable sighting. We don't know where that number came from. People have been guessing. We have no idea whatsoever about what type of variety of shark it would be," Jumeau said.Jumeau told ABC News that a special committee had been assembled last night, composed of standing authorities from the National Parks, the Seychelles Fishing Authority, area police, the Coast Guard, marine biologists, hotel security and residents of the area to coordinate their actions in guarding the area and preventing a third attack."A domestic advisory has been announced to make sure people don't go too far out. They are monitoring the waters to insure that they can get the shark. There's probably just one shark, but we are certainly taking precautions. There is no panic on the island, no wild shark hunt, although some of the popular beaches around that area have been closed and are being patrolled," said Jumeau.Current precautions include using fishing nets to cordon off areas of the bay. Fishing boats are also circulating in the area with bait in hopes of luring the shark.Seychelles officials tried to downplay the dangers of sharks in the area."In Seychelles, we don't even think about sharks, it's that rare, Seychelles is not known for that . . . That beach is one of my favorite beaches, and until now I would have gone into the water without hesitation .

'Marine massacre': Hundreds of dead sharks buried at sea

Hundreds of dead sharks illegally fished inside Ecuador's Galapagos National Park were returned to the sea after scientists counted and sampled what one expert called a "marine massacre."
John Bruno.The sharks seized aboard this fishing vessel had their fins sliced, a sign the fins would be sold in Asia for the market in shark fin soup.
"It was literally like a funeral at sea," University of North Carolina marine biologist John Bruno told msnbc.com. "It was rough and windy and the sun was going down and all 379 sharks were dragged to a gap in the gunwale and eased in the water as the ship slowly moved along.
"They slowly sank — which was for some reason the most powerful aspect of the whole day for a lot of people on board — lots of tears were shed."
Ecuadorian law required that illegally caught fish must be returned to the sea, a prosecutor told Bruno.

Moreover, three of the 30 fishermen arrested, the ship's captain and two crew, were taken with the team for the burial last Saturday "so they could see that we did put all of them into the ocean, i.e., didn't sell them ourselves,"The prosecutor with the team "told me the whole sharks would go for about $2,000 each" in the ship's homeport of Manta, Ecuador, Bruno added.All the sharks were from species (bigeye thresher, blue, Galapagos, hammerhead, tiger and mako) listed as vulnerable or near threatened.
"This happens every day somewhere in the world," he said. "In fact, this was a pretty small scale operation."
The crew will face criminal charges, park officials have said, since shark fishing, and any commercial-scale fishing, is illegal inside the park and its marine reserve.In the Galapagos, illegal shark fishing and finning — the act of cutting off the fins — took off in the late 1990s when the local sea cucumber fishery collapsed.
The Galapagos, an island chain made famous by Charles Darwin and his "Origin of Species," was declared a U.N. World Heritage site in 1979.