Other hypotheses for the shark attacks include that cattle ships transporting sheep for slaughter during the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha on 16 November dumped sheep carcasses into the Red Sea, bringing sharks unusually close to the shoreline. Unscrupulous diving companies were also blamed for feeding sharks to attract them for their clients.[17]
On 9 December 2010, an international team of experts announced that it had found that two species—makos and oceanic whitetips—had been involved in the attacks. It listed possible contributory factors as including "one or more incidents of illegal dumping of animal carcasses in nearby waters; depletion of natural prey in the area caused by overfishing; localised feeding of reef fish and/or sharks by swimmers, snorkellers and some divers; and unusually high water temperatures in Sharm El Sheikh."[18]