Shark bite confirmed in Martha's Vineyard beach incident that injured swimmer

A woman's injuries at a Martha's Vineyard beach in Massachusetts earlier this month came from a shark bite, an expert says.

On Sept. 1, Norton Point in Edgartown was closed for a report of a woman in her 20s who suffered a lower leg injury while swimming. The town said she had "wounds consistent with a bite from a marine animal."

She was taken to the hospital, but her injuries were not considered life-threatening.

Greg Skomal, a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, said that based on the size and pattern of the victim's wounds, it was likely a sandbar shark, also known as a brown shark, that bit her. 

"This is the first, to my knowledge, unprovoked shark bite on the Vineyard," Skomal told The Martha's Vineyard Times.  

He said sandbar sharks are "incredibly abundant" around Martha's Vineyard and they stay close to shore. The bite happened when the woman was in just 3 feet of water.

Sandbar sharks can grow up to 8 feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds. They are found from Cape Cod to Florida and eat fish, smaller sharks, octopus, squid, eels, rays, shrimp and crab. 

The species is not known to attack humans, but Skomal said the woman may have been moving in a way that made the shark think she was a "potential prey item." It then took an "investigative bite," he speculated.

"It's a matter of being at the wrong place, you know, at the wrong time," he said. "You know the probability of a shark bite is so low that it's very difficult for us to draw any major conclusions as to the predictability of these events."