Rainbow Haven Beach in Cow Bay, N.S., has reopened after a possible shark sighting.
A supervisor from the Nova Scotia Lifeguard Service says they saw a fin in the water at around 10 a.m. on Sunday.
“One of our senior supervisors saw a fin swimming out of the channel … and identified it as a possible shark,” says Paul D’Eon, the director of the Nova Scotia Lifeguard Service.
“We usually get three or four (fin sightings) a season.”
The beach was subsequently closed for monitoring but reopened to the public after two hours.
D’Eon says fin sightings are normal this time of year, and that the risk of injury is low.
“Historically, we’ve been supervising beaches for 51 years and we’ve never had an incident with a shark, so the risk is extremely remote,” says D’Eon.
The executive director of Ocean Tracking Network, Fred Whoriskey, says increased shark activity at this time of year is normal. The network conducts aquatic animal tracking and is headquartered at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
“It’s the time of year where all of these animals are getting ready for the winter and that mean there’s a lot of activities on the way underway as they feed as much as they can and bulk up,” says Whoriskey.
“The bottom line here is that that’s home for sharks out there in the ocean, and we’re visitors in the ocean when we go out to the beaches.”
He adds that what the network wants to do is minimize the probabilities of a “nasty encounter” between humans and the animals.
“What we try to do is minimize our probabilities of a nasty encounter.”
Experts say it’s important to take precautionary measures, like going for a swim midday or in the early afternoon.