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Turtle next to crying man on a beach
Turtles tend to be pretty low on the list of animals you need to keep an eye out for when you head to the beach. However, that is not the case with one in Croatia that has bitten five different people in less than a month, and that number could get even higher as local officials say they have no plans to intervene.
There are plenty of animals with the potential to make a day at the beach take a turn for the worse if you end up crossing paths with them. Sharks are obviously the first ones to spring to mind, but there are also jellyfish and other venomous creatures lurking in the ocean that you definitely want to avoid as well.
Turtles, on the other hand, do not seem like they belong in that group at first glance. That’s especially true if you’re on the sand given the speed (or lack thereof) they move with when they’re on land, and while they’re a bit more agile in the water, they typically don’t go out of their way to bother humans.
However, we’ve been treated to a pretty notable exception in Croatia.
A turtle has bitten five people at a beach in Croatia in less than a month
Kaštela Bay is a popular summer destination located on the southern coast of Croatia, and it boasts a number of beaches that dot a coastline that spans a little more than ten miles.
According to TVP World, some people who flocked to its shores over the past month have gotten a rude welcome from a loggerhead turtle that has started to wreak a bit of havoc; five swimmers have been bitten since July 22nd, with the most recent incident involving a man who was chomped in the lower back while in the water on Sunday.
It’s believed the same turtle is responsible for all of the bites, one that is believed to tip the scales at around 150 pounds. There have been calls to relocate the offending animal, but local officials say they are in no rush to remove it from its home, saying:
“The first solution in this situation is not to remove the animal from its natural habitat, but to avoid contact between people and the animal.”
Sprees of this nature seem to be few and far between. Loggerheads were also the culprit in a string of bites that were recorded off the coast of Čiovo, an island located just across the Kaštela Bay (meaning there is theoretically a chance the same one is the culprit) in 2023, and the experts who posited they were protecting their territory noted attacks were “extremely rare.”
I can’t say I ever consider a turtle horror movie in the vein of Jaws, but I feel like someone should get to work on one.