Three sharks wash up on Hamptons beach in front of shocked onlookers
Horrified onlookers have shared photographs of the fish discovered on the shores of Flying Point Beach, close to the ritzy village of Southampton, New York, on Sunday.
Each shark was around 4ft long and weighed 30-40lb, one observer told DailyMail.com.
Alarming photographs show one of the sharks lying on its side several meters from the water, with one fin splayed toward the sky and its mouth open.
Sharks usually end up on beaches after suffering with illness, an injury, disorientation, or being pushed ashore by strong waves or currents.
Flying Point Beach is on the East Coast, where shark sightings have become more common in recent years due to conservation efforts and cleaner waters.
The white sandy beach is a popular escape for New York City dwellers and surfers keen to soak up the beautiful scenery and large waves.
Experts said in 2022 that cleaner waters surrounding Long Island have led to an increase in the number of fish.
'If there are sharks in your area, it means it's a healthy ecosystem,' Christopher Paparo, manager of the Marine Sciences Center at Stony Brook University, told DailyMail.com
'We're spotting sharks, whales and dolphins here. In the 60s, we did not have sharks, whales and dolphins,' he said.
'There are a lot more sharks than 10 or 15 years ago,' Paparo also told CBS News.
For years, overfishing and pollution killed off many sharks in New York's waters or forced them to steer clear.
After the 1975 film Jaws, sharks were somewhat demonized in the public eye and shark conservationists have only recently rehabilitated their image.
Another reason sharks have been spotted more in recent years is the rising temperature of the ocean due to global warming, as prey can be more plentiful in warmer waters.
No fatalities have been reported this summer, and Paparo says that's due to a shark's intentions when coming into contact with humans.
He added: 'It's very common that the shark attack is not fatal, and the reason for that is they're not trying to eat us.'
However, experts said last summer that the U.S. is the shark attack capital of the world.
Despite Australia's reputation for being a hotspot, more than half of the 69 worldwide confirmed shark bites in 2023 occurred in the U.S.
Experts told DailyMail.com they believe it to be a mixture of a surplus of fish migrating to the coasts and environmental conditions, along with ocean clean-up efforts.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
Forgetfulness or early dementia? How to decipher your memory loss
Illustrations by James Yates At some point, we've all strode into a room with purpose and proceeded to completely forget what we were about to do. 'It's a very common complaint,' confirms Prof Scott Small, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Centre at Columbia University, who has studied memory for more than three decades. It used to be thought that a forgetful blip like this served no purpose and was simply a malfunction in our memory machinery, but now we know otherwise. Our memory machinery comprises several stages: our short-term and long-term memory, as well as our ability to save and recall memories. Prof Small uses the analogy of a computer to explain how we remember and forget: 'If you type something into a document and don't save it, it's gone forever – that's your short-term memory,' he says. 'If you click save, that transfers information from the short-term memory to the long-term memory. 'The other function is to be able to come back to your computer, or brain, and recall what was talked about the day before. For this, you need to have the 'open' function to be able to sift through all your memories and choose the right one.' Rather than a glitch in this hardwiring, forgetting is a healthy and necessary part of our brain's normal functioning and is vital for our creativity and mental health, as Prof Small explains in his book Forgetting, The New Science of Memory. Not only does forgetting clear cognitive bandwidth and ensure our brains are not overwhelmed with irrelevant information, but 'emotional forgetting' is also necessary to move past traumatic experiences. Though, there is a catch. As well as normal forgetting, there is also what Prof Small refers to as 'pathological forgetting' – the type that we are right to worry about. Typically caused by neurodegenerative disorders, it indicates a worsening of memory that impacts our ability to live our life fully. 'If you notice worsening of your memory over time from your own baseline, that's probably pathological forgetting, such as Alzheimer's.' Here, Prof Small shares his expertise on common examples of forgetting to distinguish which fall into the normal category and which could be an early sign of Alzheimer's. 'However, the ultimate diagnosis is when you see a doctor,' he notes. I've gone upstairs and forgotten why 'That's a super common complaint,' Prof Small says. 'This symptom alone tells me that it's probably the hippocampus, as that's the structure of the brain that's critical for memory.' The hippocampus is the 'save' button on your computer, transferring information from temporary to long-term. 'If that's always happened to you, it's normal forgetting.' Like height and weight, normal forgetting is a trait that varies between us and it's nothing to worry about if it remains consistent. However, if you're increasingly catching yourself uncertain about what you're doing mid-task, it could be an early indicator of pathological forgetting, which can be a result of cognitive ageing (forgetting that occurs as part of the normal ageing process) or Alzheimer's, Prof Small says. 'This symptom alone is not enough for me to say whether it's the earliest stages of Alzheimer's or if it's just cognitive ageing,' he notes. 'A rule of thumb in medicine is, if you experience something that really disturbs your life, it might be worth seeing a doctor. But, on its own, forgetting why you've gone upstairs doesn't declare itself as a disorder that's worth seeing a doctor for.' I'm getting names mixed up If you've forgotten or mixed up the name of someone you met a couple of times many years ago, it's nothing to worry about, Prof Small says. If you've forgotten the name of a loved one as a one-off, it's also not a cause for concern. 'It may be a bad night's sleep or stress,' he notes. 'But if someone's frequently forgetting the names of loved ones, people in their inner circle, it's time to see a doctor,' he says. It indicates a memory problem and could be a sign of Alzheimer's, he says. Similarly, if you forget the name of your prime minister or president, that's more concerning than if you forget the name of your local MP, Prof Small says. I can't remember how to make my favourite recipe 'If someone forgets a recipe that they've been making over and over again, I'm starting to worry about a disease,' Prof Small says. 'It sounds like Alzheimer's.' The memory decline that occurs with age doesn't affect our memory 'hard drive', where we store key pieces of information that we use regularly, like a favourite recipe. However, Alzheimer's does. 'It spreads to areas of the memory store, memory retrieval and recall, while ageing does not,' Prof Small says. 'The example of the recipe sounds like Alzheimer's because it's not the 'save' function of our brain,' which is used for new memories, he notes. Instead, it signals a problem with the memory hard drive. I got lost on a route I've done a million times Whilst forgetting why you walked into a room or the name of someone you only vaguely know is likely innocuous, Prof Small says that getting lost is a sign of something more serious. 'If someone tells me that they've forgotten where they've parked their car or if they've gotten lost while driving to work, that's a red flag,' he says. 'I start thinking, maybe this is Alzheimer's.' One way to think about the hippocampus is as a circuit made up of different regions that are all interconnected, Prof Small explains. The area responsible for spatial memory is the region where Alzheimer's takes hold. 'So when I hear people complain about getting lost, I start thinking more about Alzheimer's disease,' he says. I asked my husband a question but can't remember the answer five minutes later Forgetting information that we've just been told happens to all of us, Prof Small says. It could be poor attention or, if it's always in relation to your husband, there could be psychological reasons why you're not focusing on what he's saying, he notes. As a result, this falls into normal forgetting but, if it's becoming more frequent, this could be a worrying symptom. What can we do to protect our memory? There are many risk factors that increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, including obesity, poor heart health, high blood pressure and cholesterol and diabetes, Prof Small says. 'That doesn't mean these factors alone will cause Alzheimer's but, if you're going to get it, these may accelerate it,' he explains. In addition, there are certain genes that are associated with Alzheimer's, most famously Apolipoprotein E (APOE), and a family history also raises the risk. While these can't be changed, living a healthy lifestyle has been shown to benefit brain health and reduce the risk of dementia. 'Exercise seems to be a very strong influencer of maintaining our memory health into late life,' Prof Small notes. Meanwhile, his own research has found that eating a diet rich in flavanols, compounds found in apples, berries and tea, amongst other fruits and vegetables, also protects brain health. Scientists are also racing to find medicines to ward off memory-robbing diseases. 'Where we are in the field is trying to develop statins for the brain,' Prof Small says. To do that, researchers need to understand the mechanisms that are causing Alzheimer's, with the brain's immune network and system for moving proteins around our cells (known as the trafficking pathway) under investigation. So far, development has focused on drugs that work by clearing proteins called amyloid from the brain, which have been shown to disrupt neuron function. However, these have so far been blocked for use on the NHS due to their cost (estimated to be £30,000 per patient per course of treatment) and worries over side effects. 'The next generation of drugs are trying to target either the immune response or the trafficking pathway,' he explains. 'Once the biomedical enterprise has a target, where the field at large is so sophisticated, we should be optimistic that we will have a way to intervene,' Prof Small says. 'It could mean that in a year we'll have effective new drugs that target the pathways that I and others believe will be more beneficial than anti-amyloid drugs. It could take a few years but I don't think it's going to take decades. 'I think we're on the cusp of really translating all the remarkable discoveries that happened in the first 20 years of this century into meaningful therapeutics.'
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
Coral transplants could help save Miami's iconic reefs from climate change
Scientists are transplanting crossbred coral fragments onto a Miami reef, devastated by bleaching two years ago. This collaborative effort by the University of Miami, the Florida Aquarium, and Honduras-based Tela Coral aims to help reefs survive rising ocean temperatures due to global warming and climate change. Andrew Baker, a professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School and director of the Coral Reef Futures Lab, commented as divers planted the corals: "It's the end of a very long process." This Caribbean coral introduction strategy evolved over recent years. "We had this idea that we really needed to try to help Florida's coral reef by introducing more diversity from around the Caribbean, recognizing that some of the biggest threats to corals, like climate change, are really global phenomena and if you try to have Florida's reefs save themselves on their own, we could give them some outside help,' Baker said. Coral breeding has also been done in Hawaii, where in 2021, scientists were working to speed up the coral's evolutionary clock to breed 'super corals' that can better withstand the impacts of global warming. Why crossbreed with corals from Honduras? Baker's group teamed with the Florida Aquarium and Tela Coral, bringing in fragments of corals from a warm reef off of Tela, Honduras, which spawned in tanks at the aquarium. 'We were able to cross the spawn from those corals, the sperm and the eggs, to produce babies. One parent from Florida, one parent from Honduras,' Baker said. They chose the reef off of Tela because the water is about 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the water off the coast of Florida. 'And yet the corals in those environments, and especially the Elkhorn corals, are really thriving,' Baker said. He noted that there are extensive beds that are hundreds of meters long, full of flourishing Elkhorn. 'And yet they survive there despite really warm conditions and also quite nutrient-polluted waters,' Baker said. The conditions are similar to those Florida will face over the next century, Baker said. It's also the first time international crossbreeding of corals has been permitted for planting onto wild reefs. 'So we're really excited to see how these do,' he said. The hope is the corals will be more 'thermally tolerant,' which Baker and the team will be testing throughout the summer. What are Elkhorn corals? Elkhorn corals are some of Florida's most iconic species and are valuable because they form the crest of the reef, Baker said. 'And the reef is what protects shorelines from storms and flooding. So if you have healthy Elkhorn coral populations, you have a great reef that is acting almost like a speed bump over which waves and storms pass and dissipate their energy before they hit the coast,' he said. Elkhorn corals are in serious decline, thanks in part to the coral bleaching in 2023 and warming sea temperatures, Baker said. While coral get their bright colors from the colorful algae that live inside them, prolonged warmth causes the algae to release toxic compounds. The coral ejects them, and a stark white skeleton — referred to as coral bleaching — is left behind, and the weakened coral is at risk of dying. 'We've lost maybe more than 95% of the Elkhorn corals that were on Florida's reefs at that point,' Baker said. Some of the corals spawned in the Florida Aquarium's laboratory arrived there in 2020, said Keri O'Neil, director and senior scientist with the aquarium's Coral Conservation Program. She said more fragments from Honduras and Florida will continue to live at the center. 'We hope that every year in the future we can make more and more crosses and continue to figure out which parents produce the best offspring,' O'Neil said. How do they plant the corals on the reef? The tiny Elkhorn coral fragments were placed onto small concrete bases along the reef on Tuesday. 'We've arranged them in a certain way that we can compare the performance of each of corals,' Baker said. The team will study how the corals that have a Honduran parent compare to the ones that are entirely from Florida. "But it's really the future that we're looking to and in particular, a warming future and a warming summer, how these corals do and do they have more thermal tolerance than the native Florida population, because that's really what the goal of the whole project is,'' he said. Baker said it's the most exciting project he's worked on during his 20-year stint at the University of Miami. Hope for the future If the corals thrive, it could provide a blueprint for working across the Caribbean to share corals. 'This is a project about international collaboration, about the fact that our environment really doesn't have closed borders, that we can work together to make things better in the world,' said Juli Berwald, co-founder of Tela Cora. 'And it shows that when we talk to each other, when we work together, we can really do something that might be life-changing, not just for us but for the corals and the reefs and all the animals that rely on the reefs.'
BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
Dumfries prisoners' bird boxes aim to aid struggling swifts
Inmates at Dumfries prison have been building bird nesting boxes to help bolster the population of common swifts in the is part of the Save our Swifts campaign which is being launched by the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere (GSAB).The hope is that it can reverse the dramatic decline in the number of active colonies in Dumfries and the last 25 years, the population of common swifts across the region has declined by 60% - with a loss of habitat a major contributing factor. The design of modern buildings, which are often airtight, restricts the opportunity for birds to nest in eaves and crevices.A total of 28 bird nesting boxes have been built by prisoners at HMP Dumfries and will be distributed to 14 local Greenwood, senior climate officer with D&G Climate Hub, said the project had started after talks with the head of prisoner outcomes, Stuart emerged as a way prisoners could "contribute to the outside world and society" by helping nature. "I think as a partnership between the prison, the biosphere, the climate hub and the Swifts Local Network, there's a commitment to keep this ongoing - it's not just this season," she said."Anyone who wants to get involved or who has observed swifts in their community or in their own house is encouraged to get in touch."The biosphere is working with a number of groups to encourage locals to help identify where swifts are active, so that the nesting boxes can be installed near established will be placed alongside specialist swift calling devices, which mimic the bird's song and attract them to gather. "We need to know where the swifts are nesting, and one way people can help is by surveying or keeping an eye out for nesting swifts and they can log their observations on an app called Swift Mapper," explained Antoine Lemaire, GSAB's nature recovery officer."I'm hoping that when we put the boxes out, alongside the callers, the swifts will be there very quickly."The more we do that, the more people will see them and it's for future generations too - to be able to experience the sound of summer, which for me it really is."It is not their only initiative aimed boosting the bird numbers in the is also hosting a nest box making workshop, with details available on its social media pages.
