OCRACOKE ISLAND, N.C. – The latest person bitten by a shark off the North Carolina coast has been identified as a Wareham man.
Andrew Costello, 68, was bitten several times while in waist-deep water near the Outer Banks. He’s in fair condition at a North Carolina hospital.
Costello is a former Boston Herald editor.
Witnesses say he was pulled under by a shark about 7 feet long. It’s the 7th shark attack in North Carolina.
Shark experts have a not-so-reassuring explanation for a recent spate of attacks along the coast of the Carolinas: it’s mainly because so many people are getting in the water.
Six shark attacks were recorded in June in North Carolina waters. The two most recent victims had to be flown to a hospital in Virginia for treatment.
That’s more attacks than North Carolina has recorded in any single year dating to 2000.
But George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, says it’s all a matter of perspective. He notes there have already been 11 attacks in Florida, and there were 28 last year.
