A 65-year-old woman was bitten by a shark Monday afternoon in Rockaway Beach, authorities said, in what appears to be the first confirmed shark bite in New York City waters in decades.
The woman, Tatyana Koltunyuk, was bitten on the left leg while swimming near Beach 59th Street, a spokeswoman for the city parks department said. Ms. Koltunyuk was swimming alone when lifeguards heard him yelling for help, according to the police report.
The lifeguards removed Ms. Koltunyuk from the water, applied a tourniquet and administered other first aid, and emergency responders took him to Jamaica Hospital in critical condition. As of Tuesday, his condition was listed as “serious but stable,” police said.
“We hope for a full recovery for this swimmer,” park department spokeswoman Meghan Lalor said in a statement. “Although this is a frightening event, we want to remind New Yorkers that shark bites in Rockaway are extremely rare.”
The police report indicated that Ms. Koltunyuk lost about 20 pounds of flesh as a result of the bite, but photos published online showed that while his wound was severe, that number was likely a significant overestimate.
The lifeguards ordered everyone out of the water after Ms. Koltunyuk, which park officials initially said was 50, and helicopter crews searched for the sharks without finding any. The beach is closed for swimming and surfing on Tuesday.
Park officials and experts said the shark bite was the first at Rockaway Beach “in recent memory.”
“I don’t think in my history, I’ve heard of this kind of damage in our waters, despite the fact that I’ve worked with sharks for 30 years,” said Hans Walters, a field scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Aquarium. “The injury itself is unusual.”
Mr. Walters said the bite should not cause people to abandon their beach activities but was a reminder that “our city is fighting to be home to sharks.”
“Sharks are our neighbors,” he said. “They live in our backyard. We need to know they’re there.”
There were 20 relentless shark attacks in New York State since 1837, according to Florida Museum’s International Shark Attack Filea database of all known shark attacks.
Monday’s bite was the first confirmed shark attack in New York City since the 1950s, according to the Global Shark Attack File, an unofficial database of such encounters. The last documented shark bite in the city listed in the database was in 1958, when a man was bitten by a harpooned shark after prodding it.
Gavin Naylor, the program director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, which maintains the International Shark Attack File, noted that bait fish, including bluefish and bunker fish, have become more abundant in the Long Island region in recent years. , and the water quality appears to be improving.
“That brings a lot of animals that belong there that haven’t been there in a long time,” he said. “And with that, we get the animals that destroy them.”
“We can expect that as the ecosystem recovers we’ll see a little more of that,” he said, adding that people should learn more about the increased risks that are in the water.
It is possible, Mr. Naylor said, to identify the type of shark that bit Ms. Koltunyuk who once again learned about his injury and the depth of the water in which he was swimming.
On Tuesday afternoon, Beach 59th Street was mostly deserted. A police helicopter hovered overhead, and police cars moved slowly along the boardwalk, their lights flashing. Red flags prohibiting swimming were thrown in the wind along the shore.
However, some beachgoers make the most of the sunny days.
Nancy Ugalde of Brooklyn sets up on a colorful beach blanket with two relatives. They had planned to swim, he said, and were alarmed when they heard that a woman had been bitten by a shark.
Ms. Ugalde, 58, said Beach 59th Street is his favorite stretch of the Rockaways, a quiet spot secluded from the crowds that gather further afield. He had never heard of a shark attack in his 30 years of visiting the beach.
“I won’t go in there now until they say it’s OK to go in,” said Ms. Ugalde. “Very scary.”
The last known potential shark bite at Rockaway Beach was in 2017, when a surfer, Michah Behrend, suffered a leg injury that required 40 stitches.
A day after Mr. was injured. Behrend, a baby great white shark was spotted near where he was surfing, Patch.com reported. An expert said Mr. Behrend’s wounds did not appear consistent with a shark bite.
Mr. Behrend, 38, said Tuesday that he did not know exactly what caused his injury. He said he surfed in Rockaway as recently as Saturday and heard about a recent shark sighting in the area.
“The water temperatures are warmer than normal – I think that drives the sharks in,” Mr Behrend said. He said the sightings and Monday’s attack won’t stop him from surfing when the beach reopens.
“I think you just have to be careful about going out at certain times of the day,” she said, adding that she loves the ocean and visits the beach every week.
Shark bites have become more common on Long Island recently. There are eight in 2022, and there are already at least five this year. On Tuesday, officials closed a portion of Jones Beach in Nassau County after a possible shark sighting around 9:30 a.m., said George Gorman, the Long Island regional director of the state parks office.
The entire beach was closed after a second possible sighting a little later, he said; there was also a third possible sighting. The presence near shore of large pockets and schools of bait fish and bunker fish, preyed upon by sharks, helped convince officials that the water was unsafe for swimming, Mr. Gorman said.
Because of the bite at Rockaway Beach, Mr. Gorman said, the drones used to monitor the water at Jones Beach were sporadic on most days and operated throughout the day on Tuesday. The devices will scan the surf on Wednesday to make sure conditions are safe before the beach opens for swimming, he said.
Eliza Fawcett, Chelsea Rose Marcius and Ed Shanahan contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
