198
Sharks from species once thought harmless kill and eat snorkeler in feeding frenzy
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
198 points (99.0% liked)
World News
50488 readers
1837 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
- Blogsites are treated in the same manner as social media sites. Medium, Blogger, Substack, etc. are not valid news links regardless of who is posting them. Yes, legitimate news sites use Blogging platforms, they also use Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and we don't allow those links either.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
This man was last seen surrounded by cats:
Previously thought harmless, these were really really hungry.
I've never met a cat person who believed they were harmless.
Not being harmless os part of their charm.
The odds of your pet cat killing and eating you are low, but never zero.
Somewhere, my mother's paranoia is shouting in vindication.
Turns out these sharks have been following the news.
Decent people.
If a tiny 2 foot long cookie cutter shark can take chunks out of people, then any shark bigger than that with sharp teeth is equally if not more dangerous.
You just said the reason why I don't go in the sharks' homes. They live there. Sharks are gonna shark. Don't wanna get eaten by a shark? Don't go in the water!
The article is saying that these sharks aren't really sharking though. The sharks behavior has been changed by environmental factors (regular human feeding and humans raising the local sea temperature by dumping warm water from the desalination plant).
- Sharks are attracted by usually warm water from desalination plant.
- Tourist guide boats start chumming the waters to keep the sharks around for tourists.
- The attraction of so many mostly harmless sharks changes their feeding dynamic. Ever tried eating an ice cream cone near a small child? Ever tried pushing an ice cream cart through a crowd of small kids? Way different dynamic as supply and demand changes as the crowd grows.
- Formerly mostly harmless and "shy around humans" sharks start directly approaching humans as a source of food.
- Sharks investigate human, beg for food. How do sharks investigate? By biting, nibbles really, or bumping into people swimming.
- The first bite generates a predictably violent reaction from the humans, which triggers a feeding frenzy response. Humans aren't equipped to defend or escape this.
The point is that at every step of the way, these sharks are acting in a very strange way (for them) as a direct result of human action. We've seen this kind of thing before when people feed wild animals, strange and dangerous human seeking behaviors develop: alligators, bears, moose, etc. Dangerous animals? Yes, but the behaviors that result in human deaths are in no way natural.
Dusky sharks, who are apparently fed by people and tour boat operators so they stick around the boats.
“The situation likely occurred via a process of juxtaposition bites, with two distinct motivations: the first, a (probably single) reflex/clumsiness bite driven by food begging, and the second, several predatory bites triggered by a feeding frenzy,” researchers explain.
“The central objective is to eliminate the begging behaviour in sharks, and this can only be achieved by establishing and enforcing a complete and total ban on all artificial feeding of sharks by the public,” scientists write.
Wild animals are never “harmless.”
Deer have killed people. Birds have killed people.
He looks so silly and cute tho...
Juuuust a liiiiitle snoot boop...
Even snails have killed people. Who knows, there could be a snail coming for you right now!
My only regret is that I could not have killed more snails in my short life. They eat my garden.
Let me introduce you to this French cuisine I think you'll enjoy.
Very, very slowly
But relentlessly
The odds of you being killed by a snail are low... but never zero. And when it inevitably happens, there's no way to prove that it was intentional, that it was retribution for your crimes against this snail's entire bloodline... but I'll know.
Water had killed people.
Gravity has killed people.
But above all, humans have killed people.
If I wanted to live, I'd go live with the sharks.
100%
humans are the worst
Eh. Food has killed people too, we're not that impressive
The last thing that went through his head was "dusky shark do do do do do do..."
The recession (climate change) is hitting us all, human and animal
I'm gonna go ahead and choose not to swim in a school of sharks.
I'm gonna go ahead and choose not to pogo-stick on I-5 at rush hour
Listen someone has to and it sounds like you just volunteered
Back in the 70’s I used to swim with nurse sharks all around. Wonder if they will start eating peops at some point as well.
Hunger isn't a joke. I once saw a squirrel eating a bird.
I saw a crow snatch up and gulp down a newborn sparrow that fell out of its nest. It was a pretty hardcore nature moment seeing the whole flock of sparrows freak out, and the mom being frantic for an hour afterwards.
Squirrels are omnivorous. Their PR is awesome and not many people know about that. But a squirrel with blood on its face is a little chilling.
A lot of herbivores will eat meat opportunistically, even if they're not starving. It's an easy way of getting quick nutrients.
Squirrels are not strictly herbivores though. It's pretty typical behavior for them to occassionally eat eggs, baby birds or other smaller critters.
Or meat out of the garbage bin in the park. Or cum from disposed condoms in the park.
Yeah, ofc. Why would you miss 🤮 an opportunity 🤮for 🤮 a easy 🤮 source of protein 🤮.
This guy parks.
Or the dismembered body I buried, in the park.
Now that escalated quickly.
Once saw a squirrel run up to a half flattened spasming and dying squirrel on the road and chitter around it for a second. We all thought it was its friend or relative. Then it took the nut out of the dying squirrels mouth and ran off with it.
Ice Age 22
Maybe NSFW but horse eating a chick.
Christ.
I describe the video briefly below, so don't read if you're straight-up avoiding this.
For anyone curious, it's not gory or horrendous. There is a chick, which the horse just kinda... mouths up, and the hen rushes the horse who just does care. Then more chewing.
That's (not) nuts!
Sharks are literally underwater dogs. Same consequences for FAFO, but much more stigmatized.
Yeah, but when a Labrador mouths your hand you still get to keep it.
If they want to hurt you... no. Maybe not with small dogs, but the same applies to small sharks.
There’s something in the water there…
And they are still harmless, I'm sure flies have killed people too.