The search is on for a bull shark re­spon­si­ble for at­tack­ing a British tourist in To­ba­go yes­ter­day.

The at­tack led to the clo­sure of ten ma­jor beach­es on the is­land, as pan­icked bathers and fish­er­men re­port­ed sight­ings of the shark fol­low­ing the at­tack. News of the in­ci­dent made its way around the globe, as sev­er­al US and UK pub­li­ca­tions car­ried ar­ti­cles about the shark at­tack.

THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine pro­vid­ed up­dates on the in­ci­dent and was among the first to break the news that 64-year-old vis­i­tor Pe­ter Smith was se­vere­ly bit­ten on his left hand, left thigh and stom­ach while bathing at Cour­land Bay, al­so known as Tur­tle Beach.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred around 9.15 am.

Smith, a guest at the Starfish Re­sort, was at­tacked by what is be­lieved to be a bull shark ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10 me­ters away from the shore.

The shark, es­ti­mat­ed to be be­tween eight to 10 feet in length and two feet in width, caused se­vere in­juries to Smith - sev­er­ing his left hand from the el­bow down, sev­er­ing his left thigh, and lac­er­at­ing his stom­ach.

Smith re­ceived crit­i­cal care at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and by yes­ter­day evening was list­ed in sta­ble con­di­tion in the In­ten­sive Care Unit af­ter un­der­go­ing life-sav­ing surgery. He was ex­pect­ed to be flown to Trinidad some­time last night for fur­ther med­ical care.

Sec­re­tary for the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion Dr Faith B Yis­rael pro­vid­ed an up­date on Smith, say­ing med­ical staff at the hos­pi­tal man­aged to save his limbs.

She said, “So far, it seems like all of his ap­pendages have been saved. We will pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive sta­tus re­port to­mor­row (Sat­ur­day).”

Smith was sched­uled to leave To­ba­go yes­ter­day but de­cid­ed to go for a last-minute swim be­fore his de­par­ture.

Au­gus­tine, in a so­cial me­dia post, said he spoke with the British High Com­mis­sion­er about the at­tack on the British na­tion­al and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard was close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the ar­eas on the look­out for the shark. He al­so spoke with Smith’s wife and apol­o­gised for the in­ci­dent and as­sured the THA’s com­plete as­sis­tance.

Soon af­ter the in­ci­dent, the Chief Sec­re­tary and the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency an­nounced the clo­sure of Tur­tle Beach, ad­vis­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to de­sist from ven­tur­ing there.

Au­gus­tine took to so­cial me­dia again, dur­ing the day yes­ter­day, an­nounc­ing that oth­er beach­es had been closed af­ter shark sight­ings were re­port­ed in these ar­eas.

TEMA, in its post, ad­vised that a to­tal of ten beach­es were closed, un­til fur­ther no­tice.

Beach­es closed

Tur­tle Beach, Grafton Beach, Mount Irvine Beach, Grange Bay, Rocky Point , Buc­coo Beach, Swal­lows Beach, No Man’s Land, Store Bay, Pi­geon Point

A $10,000 boun­ty had lit­er­al­ly b A $10,000 boun­ty was ini­tial­ly placed on the bull shark’s head. The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) an­nounced the re­ward for reg­is­tered fish­er­men who were able to cap­ture the shark re­spon­si­ble for the at­tack.

In a state­ment, the THA said it was us­ing the ser­vices of the T&T Coast Guard and the De­part­ment of Fish­eries to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion and “neu­tralise the threat” if pos­si­ble.

But by late evening, Au­gus­tine, dur­ing a news con­fer­ence on so­cial me­dia, an­nounced the boun­ty was off. He said the de­ci­sion was made to be more con­scious of the an­i­mal be­cause of pub­lic out­cry. He said the fo­cus would now be on the Coast Guard and fish­er­men re­lo­cat­ing the shark. Au­gus­tine said the beach­es closed yes­ter­day would al­so re­main closed to­day.

Eye­wit­ness­es: A hor­ror

to ex­pe­ri­ence

Mean­while, those who wit­nessed the shark at­tack on the British tourist told Guardian Me­dia it was hor­rif­ic to watch.

A beach ven­dor, who gave his name on­ly as Blacks, said, “It’s sad to see what hap­pened. I see peo­ple run­ning to the scene. I hear a woman say ‘shark, shark’. I thought the man was catch­ing cramps. When I reach clos­er I see­ing blood. The shark even try to come on shore to at­tack the man.

“Thank God there was a doc­tor on site. I see the shark, it’s big­ger than me. I don’t re­al­ly feel scared but it’s the first time I’m hear­ing it hap­pen­ing in To­ba­go,” Blacks said.

Eye­wit­ness­es claimed the shark then tried to at­tack a woman bathing at Grafton Bay, near Grafton Beach Ho­tel, just min­utes away from the first at­tack.

Fish­er­man Si­mon Mc Dou­gal re­called sav­ing a group by alert­ing them about the bull shark.

“I saw a big shark swim­ming this way along the sand go­ing up. I run and raff out the white woman, it near­ly bite she. Then the rest of peo­ple had to run quick and pull out two oth­er peo­ple,” Mc Dou­gal said.

He said oth­er peo­ple scam­pered to safe­ty, with one per­son climb­ing a rock.

One fish­er­man at the bay, Cur­tis Job re­called what hap­pened dur­ing the at­tack on Smith.

He ex­plained, “We thought he was drown­ing or had a heart at­tack. When we re­alise they were pulling him out of the wa­ter and we see what it was and the kind of bite he has, we re­alise he couldn’t swim and save him­self. If his col­leagues weren’t with him he would have drowned.”

Job said Cour­land Bay fish­er­men are work­ing on a plan to catch the shark.

“We go­ing to try. We are go­ing to put out things out in the wa­ter we know it would come for and see if we could get it out of the wa­ter, be­cause no­body would want to bathe in the sea when they hear this,” he said.

But not every­one was per­turbed by the in­ci­dent. Even as the warn­ing cir­cu­lat­ed, one man seemed un­both­ered as he en­joyed a swim in the same area where the shark at­tack hap­pened.

Shark sight­ings 

Through­out the day sea bathers, fish­er­men and oth­ers were on high alert as some record­ed videos of a shark swim­ming near the Buc­co board­walk hours af­ter the at­tack.

In an­oth­er video, peo­ple on­board boats at No Man’s Land, near the Bon Ac­cord La­goon, were sent scam­per­ing af­ter what looked like a shark swam close­ly to the group.

In a short video on so­cial me­dia, peo­ple were seen run­ning off and climb­ing on­to boats to get away from the brown­ish-coloured shark.

Oth­ers were heard scream­ing say­ing “look the shark.”

As this hap­pened, one man in a fish­ing boat picked up what ap­peared to be a fish­ing har­poon as oth­ers shout­ed, urg­ing him to kill it.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia could not con­firm if the shark seen in the video was the same one in­volved in the ear­li­er at­tack or the shark spot­ted in Buc­coo.

Two months ago, a fish­er­man in Blan­chisseuse was at­tacked by a Black-tipped Reef Shark. He sur­vived but was in­jured. He killed the shark dur­ing the in­ci­dent.