Jahmari Reid was just 16 years old when he was pounced upon by a killer shark – ending his short life under brutal circumstances. And now, experts say there’s a chilling reason why these bloodcurdling attacks are on the rise.

Jamaican schoolboy Jahmari apparently headed out spearfishing alone early on Monday, August 26, off the coast of Montego Bay – a popular tourist hotspot. He never returned home.

The following morning, at around 9am, Jahmari’s mutilated body was pulled from the waters, amid sightings of a huge tiger shark.

The teenager had been decapitated, and his left arm was missing – injuries consistent with a shark attack, according to a police report.







Shark victim Jahmari Reid was just 16 years old
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Last year, a BBC documentary examined why we are witnessing more shark attacks than ever before despite populations of the formidable fish depleting.

The BBC One show, Why Sharks Attack, investigated why sharks are entering shallow waters of luxury resorts away from their natural hunting habits of the deep ocean.

Featured in the programme is Nour Farid, from the leading Red Sea conservation group HEPCA. He believes critically low fish stocks are directly impacting Red Sea sharks – and is campaigning for fishing to be banned immediately.

Meanwhile Dr Laura Ryan, from Macquarie University, is researching whether Great Whites might be attacking people in a case of mistaken identity, where they confuse swimmers and surfers with their preferred prey of seals.

In recent times, researchers have come across sharks with shrunken livers, which is a sign of severe malnourishment. Therefore reports suggest some of the recent attacks could have been caused by hungry sharks being forced to hunt for prey that they wouldn’t normally eat, the documentary says.







Great White shark attacks appear to be on the rise
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Ecologist and Red Sea shark researcher Dr Lucy Hawkes
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“Banning commercial fishing is a must – the fish stock now is reaching a critical level, it is not sustainable,” Mr Farid adds. Amid the shocking Red Sea fatalities, officials have introduced temporary fishing restrictions and have announced plans for a tagging programme to track and monitor larger sharks.

Technologies being developed to protect swimmers and surfers to help track movement with drone footage have been developed elsewhere in Australia, where the tracking is acting as ‘ariel lifeguards’. The New South Wales government have also invested in a tagging scheme to allow people to track moments on an app before jumping in the water.

Efforts have heightened after UK expat Simon Nellist, who swam regularly in the ocean around Sydney, Australia, was mauled to death by a Great White.

The species not only eats fish but also mammals and commonly ambushes seals. However, Dr Laura Ryan is researching whether they are now mistaking humans for seals due to an increasing number of people in the water.







They could be mistaking humans for seals
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Known as the ‘lions of the oceans’, Great Whites stalk their prey from underneath and explode through the ocean’s surface. Dr Ryan says that often, attacks can be down to an innocent error: “There are a few possible reasons why sharks can bite humans, it can be aggression or a human intruding their space. Or in a more exploratory nature, if they’re not sure what something is this could be how they investigate an object.

“There is also this theory of mistaken identity which really stems from the idea about white sharks and mistaking humans more visually as potential prey items, specifically seals.”

The giant species, around 6 metres long, lack colour vision and can’t see fine details like we can, the documentary states. Dr Ryan has spent time studying seals to see how sharks might view them in an attack, and has compared this to images of swimmers and surfers.

“The theory started around surfing, thinking the board was something that made us more similar, but there were a lot of similarities with the swimmer,” she adds. The expert concluded that the silhouette could be enough for a Great White to confuse a human with its regular prey.

The investigation also heard from the University of Florida’s professor Gavin Naylor, who delved into the evolution of sharks and the reasons why Florida and Australia are two of the world’s hotspots for attacks.

And also from marine ecologist, Dr Lucy Hawkes from the University of Exeter, who was the first scientist to catch and tag a silvertip shark in the Red Sea. “We need sharks,” she says.

“These are predators in their natural habitats looking for something to eat that are confused because they’ve bumped into a human.”

Shark attacks are rare in Jamaica and this is just the fourth time it has led to a death, as per Florida-based International Shark Attack File. It’s believed that, on this tragic occasion, the predator had been following a cruise ship when it pounced on Jahmari. Local fishermen have since attempted to kill the shark and possibly recover more of Jahmari’s remains.

Jahmari’s father Michael Reid, who was on the beach when divers discovered his son’s body, has shared how he ‘feels so bad’ that he went out to sea alone. “I can’t believe that he went to sea by himself and that was the outcome. Sad to know. I feel so bad,” he said, adding that he had warned Jahmari about the dangers of spearfishing before the tragedy.

He told the Jamaica Observer: “It is something that we argue about, we fight about. He’s not doing it for a worthy cause, he’s not doing it for needs or anything. It is what it is still. Can you believe it?”

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