The first recorded fatal shark attack of 2023 was recorded in Mexico this month after a great white shark reportedly decapitated a man who was diving for mollusks.
Manuel Lopez was diving in the Gulf of California when a nearly 20-foot great white shark attacked him while he was roughly 50 feet below the surface.
The attack happened back during the first week in January but was only recently recorded as shark attack death.
Witnesses who were fishing with Lopez said that the great white shark literally ripped his head off his body.
“He was diving when the animal attacked him, impressively ripping off his head and biting both shoulders,” a translator for the fisherman said, according to Fox News.
A seafood shortage in the area has reportedly forced some to go to more dangerous lengths to find food, thus putting them in contact with apex predators like great white sharks.
Insider reported that divers have been warned about the shark infested waters and that most were staying out of the water.
Divers have also been warned against wearing black wetsuits because it can reportedly make the divers look like seals to the sharks, the report said. Instead, some of them have been advised to paint white stripes on their wetsuits which could make the shark mistake the diver for a kind of poisonous sea snake.
The report said that the process for catching the seafood that Lopez was searching for “can generate sounds and movement that can attract sharks.”
The government reportedly offers a small stipend for divers who can’t dive due to the danger, but it is usually not enough to make ends meet.