Experts say a juvenile sand tiger shark likely bit a 20-year-old woman while she was wading in the surf at Jones Beach State Park on Wednesday afternoon, New York State authorities said.
The woman reported being bitten on the left leg and foot in the surf outside of the park’s Central Mall and was treated by lifeguards and emergency medical technicians at the scene at 4:15 p.m. on June 25, authorities said. The was then rushed to Nassau County University Medical Center Hospital, where she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
“The swimmer did not observe what caused her injuries,” the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation said in a statement. “Swimming was immediately suspended, and the beachfront searched by drone for dangerous marine life, with negative results.”
The beach was reopened to swimming the following morning, when police and lifeguards deployed drones to watch from the air.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation coordinated with experts, who ruled out several species responsible for the bite.
“Without direct observation of the animal that caused the bites a full expert consensus was not reached,” the state said in a statement. “DEC concludes this incident most likely involved a juvenile sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus).”
The incident comes after five people were bitten by sharks in two days in 2023 in the surf off Long Island. In 2022, six shark attacks reported in three weeks — two of which occurred on the same day — in the waters off Long Island’s beaches, prompting additional shark monitoring efforts. Those shark bites came after two children suffered apparent shark bites on the same day off Fire Island in 2018, which were the first local cases since 1948.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman urged swimmers to only swim where lifeguards are on duty to avoid a potential shark bite and not to go swimming after dusk when sharks are most actively feeding.
“We monitor not only the sharks but the fish activity because the usually the sharks are following the fish,” he told reporters during a news conference before going for a swim to prove that the ocean is still safe for beachgoers.
