4 shark bites reported off Long Island in recent days
Derick Waller has more on the shark bites at Long Island beaches and what officials want swimmers to do.
FIRE ISLAND, Long Island (WABC) -- As more people head to the beach to cool off from the heat there's a warning about watching where you swim.
At least four shark bites were reported off the coast of Long Island in just the past couple of days.
There's more surveillance of sharks than ever before, and a New York State drone captured some incredible video of sharks in the water.
The drone captured a school of about 50 sharks swimming off the coast of Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island Tuesday morning prompting a delayed opening at the beach.
Some of the bites happened within minutes of each other.
On Tuesday, a 47-year-old man was bitten off Quoque Village Beach at around 1:50 p.m.
Five minutes later, a 49-year-old man was bitten at Fire Island Pines.
On Monday, two 15-year-olds were bitten in separate incidents, one off Kismet Beach and the other at Robert Moses.
Now officials are beefing up their surveillance efforts and finding more sharks in the water.
"There's millions of sharks in the Atlantic Ocean," said George Gorman, NYS Parks Long Island. "We have more surveillance and more capabilities through drones than we have ever seen. So we don't know if that's a normal occurrence, but what we do know is that there is a new normal. The sharks are coming closer to shore because the bait fish and bucket fish have been expanding and they are closer to shore."
It's also worth reminding people to never to go swimming when a lifeguard's not on duty.
That's what happened at Robert Moses on Monday evening and thankfully, other beachgoers came to that teenage girl's rescue.
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Source: WABC-TV
