By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Published: 17:07 BST, 29 August 2026 | Updated: 17:45 BST, 29 August 2026
Martha's Vineyard has long been a summer playground for presidents, celebrities and some of America's wealthiest families.
But this year, the millionaires' paradise has begun to resemble the setting of a horror movie.
A rare flesh-eating bacterial infection recently struck an elderly resident after they swam in island waters with an open wound, prompting an urgent warning from health officials.
Days earlier, a bat killed by a pet cat tested positive for rabies, only the third confirmed case on Martha's Vineyard since testing began in 1985.
Across the island, lone star ticks are spreading alpha-gal syndrome, a potentially life-threatening allergy that can leave victims unable to eat red meat or dairy, forcing restaurants to transform their kitchens and menus.
And beyond its pristine beaches, great white sharks are cruising the waters made infamous by Jaws, with researchers encountering three in a single day this summer.
Together, the four threats form a macabre set of 'Four Horsemen,' a symbol of cascading catastrophe and death, descending on one of America's most exclusive vacation retreats.
Now experts are examining whether warmer waters and changing wildlife patterns are making some of these once-unusual dangers increasingly difficult for the island's rich and powerful residents to escape.
Martha's Vineyard has long been a summer playground for presidents, celebrities and some of America's wealthiest families, but this year, the millionaires' paradise has begun to resemble the setting of a horror movie.
Celebrities like Bill Murray, Reese Witherspoon and Larry David regularly visit Martha's Vineyard, while the Obamas own a nearly 29-acre waterfront estate in Edgartown, where a 65-year-old resident recently contracted Vibrio vulnificus.
The bacterium thrives in warm coastal and brackish water and can enter the body through a small cut.
Severe infections can destroy tissue, trigger sepsis and require amputation. The CDC says roughly one in five infected people dies, sometimes within days.
The Edgartown patient and resident had an open wound on their foot while swimming in several local bodies of water.
