New Smyrna Beach attracts thousands of visitors from across the world to its shore.
The Florida beach is known to be an excellent surfing spot, and people come from far and wide to ride its waters for themselves.
However people are not the only ones taking advantage of this stretch of coastline, and it has the unfortunate distinction of being dubbed by some “the shark bite capital of the world”.
The area saw a total of five shark attacks in 2023, according to Shark Attack Figures.
And the Daily Star reports there were three more in the area over the summer of 2024 – with two attacks taking place just days apart.
Two men were attacked in just two days in July this year – a 26-year-old man wading around in five-foot-deep water and a 21-year-old who was playing American football in knee-deep water.
And in August, fireman CJ Lyles was attacked, becoming the sixth recorded shark bite victim in the area for the year. The incident left him with two torn tendons.
So why is this beach such an epicentre for shark attacks?
Speaking to the Daily Star, Gavin Naylor, director of Florida Museum of Natural History’s Florida Program for Shark Research, said there were a number of factors coming together.
He said: “You find so many bites [in Volusia County] and not so many in other places, it tells you that something about that region is conducive toward shark bites, which is not in other places.
“You need a bunch of sharks, and they need to be in the mood to bite things, and you need a bunch of people in the same area at the same time.”
He said the nearby Ponce Inlet outflow, which runs out into the Atlantic just to the north of the beach, has a dredge around 40 feet deep which brings in a lot of nutrients as the tide comes in – and also creates a surfbreak.
Mr Naylor added: “Also, because of the surf, it’s very turbid and the sharks can’t see very well. So now you’ve got these sharks that are all jingled up and trying to find their lunch, swimming all over the place chasing mullet and menhaden in low visibility water, plus 50 or 60 people with arms and legs dangling off the edge of their boards looking for their perfect wave.”