UK tourist hotspot on SHARK ALERT with warning flags raised after creatures lurking on beaches ahead of Easter holidays

A POPULAR tourist hotspot is on high alert for sharks after the creatures were spotted swarming the coastline.

Warning flags have been raised after an emergency jet ski patrol found sharks just 200 meters from shore.

3

3

3

The animals were spotted off the coast of Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands, a sandy paradise popular with British holidaymakers.

With the Easter holidays just weeks away, patrols are constantly being sent out to scan the coastline in search of hammerhead sharks.

Officials initially raised a red flag and warned people to completely avoid the water at Playa Blanca beach in Las Palmas.

They later downgraded it to a yellow flag, but this only means people can paddle carefully if they stay close to the beach.

Not far away, off the coast of Hammerhead sharks were spotted in Gran Canaria just a few meters away from the shore last September.

Lifeguards were forced to raise an incredibly rare purple flag after the sighting.

It signals a danger to swimmers from animals such as jellyfish or sharks.

Lurking so close to shore can be quite unusual behavior for the hammerhead sharks, which are usually shy and don’t get too close to people.

Most of them tend to feed on stingrays, other sharks, fish, squid and bottom dwellers such as small crustaceans.

Shark attacks in the Canary Islands – including Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura – are extremely rare and occur on average less than one per year.

Other nearby islands are also popular with British tourists, such as Tenerife, Lanzarote and La Palma.

The patrols operating in Fuerteventura today will check to see if the sharks have moved to another part of the ocean – possibly closer to the other hotspots on the island. Canarian weekly reports.

Last year, trained divers and swimmers were able to deter a hammerhead shark that was swimming dangerously close to swimmers near Las Canteras in Gran Canaria.

But during the summer, a the entire beach on the island was closed after another sighting.

A pair of hammerhead sharks were spotted lurking off Patalavaca beach, so close-up shots captured the distinctive contours of their bodies in the shallow water.

They swam boldly past the cameraman before lifeguards cleared the water.

Local authorities were forced to issue a red flag alert.

Hammerhead sharks

HAMMERHEAD sharks, with their distinctively shaped heads, can grow up to 5.5 meters in length.

They are impressive ocean predators, feeding mainly on stingrays, other sharks and even some of their own.

The eyes, on the outer edges of the hammer, provide 360 ​​degrees of vertical vision, meaning the shark can look up and down quite easily.

Their unique shapes ultimately give them better visual range than most other sharks, making them much more dangerous and effective in their hunt.

The hammer acts as a balancing organ, but its body, like other sharks, is designed to twist and bend.

When fully grown, they can weigh up to 600 pounds.

And they can live up to 25 to 35 years.

There have been 17 documented unprovoked attacks by hammerhead sharks on humans.

None of them died.

They generally live in warmer, tropical waters and may lurk on the coast or far out to sea.