Shark Experts Head to Egypt to Investigate Attacks

Tourists who were due to participate in an aquatic exercise class perform on the sand instead, at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Monday, Dec. 6, 2010. Egyptian authorities have indefinitely closed the resort's beaches for swimming after oceanic white tip sharks mauled three Russians and a Ukrainian tourist last week, and tore the arm off an elderly German tourist on Sunday, killing her almost immediately. (AP Photo/Hussein Talal)

CAIRO – Egypt's Chamber of Diving and Watersports says three shark experts from the U.S. are heading to Egypt to help try to explain what's behind an unusual series of shark attacks that have killed one tourist and injured three others over the past week.

Shark attacks at Egypt's Red Sea resorts are rare. The attacks at Sharm el-Sheikh, on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, are believed to involve one oceanic whitetip shark. Whitetips normally do not approach beaches.

Some have theorized that illegal fishing could be driving sharks closer to shore in search of food.

The Chamber of Diving said Monday the visiting experts include George Burgess, director of the Florida Program, and Marie Levine, the head of the Shark Research Institute in Princeton.