A spate of shark encounters and sightings has led to a flurry of warnings to surfers and swimmers along the Central Coast, including at Santa Barbara Island in Channel Islands National Park.

The Santa Barbara Island Landing Cove was the scene of a recent great white shark attack on a California sea lion.

Despite the heightened awareness, a surfer was bitten by a shark Friday evening near Silver Shoals off Shell Beach. Derek Crane, 19, of San Luis Obispo, was bitten on the foot by what he described as a four-foot brown shark with dark spots. A friend drove him to a nearby hospital for treatment of a laceration.

National park officials last week issued a public notice for those wishing to visit Santa Barbara Island. Great white sharks have been observed in the area attacking California sea lions although there have been no shark attacks on humans there.

There have been three known attacks on sea lions by great white sharks in the past few months, including one at the Santa Barbara Island Landing Cove, the only access point on the one-square-mile isle. Hordes of sea lions enjoy hauling out on the barnacle-encrusted rocks surrounding the cove. Two other attacks occurred off Cat Canyon on the rugged southeast side of the island.

Officials warned the public to enter the water at their own risk until further notice. The windswept island is a popular destination for day hikers, campers, divers and kayakers.

Santa Barbara Island is home to one of the largest California sea lion rookeries in the state — numbering in the thousands — and a smaller northern elephant seal rookery with hundreds of the animals.

via Great White Shark Warnings Issued at Channel Islands National Park – Noozhawk.com.

It’s probably not what you want to hear as you head out for your Fourth of July trip to the beach, but the Coast Guard has issued a shark advisory for the waters off New England.

Just days after a fisherman caught a 7-foot great white shark off Massachusetts, the agency is warning swimmers and boaters to be alert.

“I have no doubt that a Great White Shark that swims into your comfort zone would surely find a splashing paddle or dangling hand inviting,” First Coast Guard District recreational boating specialist Al Johnson said.

Shark attacks on humans in the Northeast are rare.

The last unprovoked shark attack off Massachusetts was in 1936, according to the Cape Cod Times.

The last report of a shark attack in Connecticut was on Aug. 24, 1960 in Seaside Park, off the coast of Bridgeport, according to records maintained by the Ichthyology Department at the University of Florida.

A 38-year-old Stratford man sought medical attention for what he said was a shark bike.

George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research and web editor for the International Shark Attack File, said he would not discount what his colleagues deemed a shark bite, but what’s a little worrisome about the report is that shark attacks are “extremely rare” on the Long Island Sound and this was the only one in Connecticut.

The person to report the bike shark was also noted to have gone “shark hunting” in the past in New York, Burgess said.

“My colleagues 50 years ago has ruled it a shark attack. I’m not going to trump their call at this point,” he said.

There were, however, other sightings, he said, and there were more reports of people seeing fins.

via Sharks!!! Coast Guard Says Beware | NBC Connecticut.

Hearing the ominous “Jaws” theme music after Saturday’s great white shark sighting 20 miles off the Scituate coast? State environmental officials have some advice: tune it out.

“For common-sense swimmers, they (great whites) don’t pose a threat,” Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles said. “People should enjoy the beaches. Obviously, if you see a large population of seals, you’ll probably want to avoid swimming in the middle of a bunch of them.”

Still, the number of great whites in New England waters may be on the rise, according to experts, who point out that the sharks love to feast on gray seals, whose populations have surged since protections were put in place in the 1970s.

“We’ve been seeing a slow increase over the past 10 years in the number of credible (great white) sightings,” said Dr. Greg Skomal, a biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries. “White sharks have been here; they will continue to be here. This is part of their normal migratory pattern.”

Several sharks were spotted last summer off Monomoy Island, near Chatham, a popular place for gray seals. Warnings for swimmers were posted.

Five great whites off Cape Cod were electronically tagged, allowing state biologists to learn about their migratory habits through satellite tracking.

Four of the sharks left southern New England by October and wintered in waters off northern Florida. The latest tag to surface was off North Carolina in mid-April.

The shark spotted Saturday was a juvenile about 7 feet long and weighing about 150 pounds. It was caught by the sport fishing boat Sweet Dreams III about 20 miles offshore on Stellwagen Bank. The shark was tagged and released.

While more great white sightings are expected, officials said beach closings are unlikely. Such decisions are generally made by towns, Bowles said.

The last fatal shark attack in Massachusetts occurred in 1936 near Mattapoisett.

The attacks depicted in the 1975 hit film “Jaws” – filmed on Martha’s Vineyard – made many people consider the great white shark among the planet’s most feared creatures. Scientists say the mythology is not backed up by fact.

via State officials downplay danger after shark sighting – Quincy, MA – The Patriot Ledger.

Is it just me or has there been an awful lot of shark news lately? Hint: it’s not just me.

Not one, but two attacks took place last Friday when a shark bit a 6-year-old girl in South Carolina and another shark bit a 13-year-old from North Carolina. And in early June a shark bit an 18-year-old girl in Georgia. Fortunately, no limbs (or lives!) were lost.

But there have also been several shark sightings in the Hamptons near New York City, and recently and a great white shark was caught and then released in Massachusetts.

Now the U.S. National Park Service has announced that they are issuing an “enter waters at your own risk” warning for the area around Santa Barbara Island in Southern California. The Wednesday warning was due to three great white shark attacks on sea lions in the area and is in effect until further notice.

Holiday weekend, beautiful locations, and great white sharks. This sounds either like a movie plot or one of my worst nightmares.

And in a crazy coincidence, this summer marks the 35th anniversary of the release of Jaws. Which, if you didn’t already know, features one of the creepiest movie scenes ever, where the old fisherman, Quint, recounts the story of the USS Indianapolis. Terrifying!

via Shark Attack 2010: Feds Warn Southern California About Great Whites – TIME NewsFeed.

There’s a scene near the beginning of one of the Naked Gun movies in which Lieutenant Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) shoos people from a crime scene by saying: “Nothing to see here. Keep it moving. Nothing to see.’’ Behind him, there are gunshots, explosions, bodies hitting the pavement.

This is what came immediately to mind as Ian Bowles and Gregory Skomal told the people of Massachusetts this week that there’s nothing to fear from the great white sharks that have taken up residence along our shores.

Bowles is the state secretary of environmental affairs; Skomal is the state’s shark expert, which I hope is not a patronage job. The thrust of their advice was not to swim with seals — i.e., shark food — in warm water.

Thank you, gentlemen. And may I add that you should never jump out a window more than five stories high.

Ian and Greg were, not coincidentally, standing on dry land as they announced the ocean was perfectly safe. Perhaps their proclamation would have carried a little more weight if Bowles donned a wetsuit and held his next news conference in the surf off Lighthouse Beach.

That’s not going to happen. The governor of this coastal state decided to build his vacation house 130 miles inland. Our lieutenant governor is from landlocked Worcester. They know the ocean like J.D. Drew knows how to play through pain.

Which is to say that as much as Frank Drebin comes to mind, there’s another fictional character that may be even more relevant to the moment: Larry Vaughn. Vaughn was the mayor of Amity in the blockbuster “Jaws,’’ Amity being an awful lot like Edgartown, “Jaws’’ providing a prelude to what could be happening in real life. When the gouged body of a tourist washed ashore just before the July 4 holiday, Vaughn, like Bowles, said there was no reason in the world why people shouldn’t swim.

Several bodies later, there seemed to be reason after all.

We dodged fate last summer. There were so many great whites at the Cape that they were just about ordering Tanqueray and tonics around the pool at Chatham Bars Inn. An awful lot of perfectly nice seals suddenly found themselves on the lower links of the food chain, though fortunately, no human swimmers lost so much as a toe.

But how long can our good fortune go on? Bowles and Skomal are betting forever; I’m not so sure. It’s only June and a Gloucester-based fisherman videotaped a juvenile great white swimming off Scituate. The fisherman pegged this youngster at 200 pounds. Skomal, a master of underestimation, had him at 150. Trust me, 50 pounds either way isn’t going to matter if you’re pretending to be Tom Brady with a Nerf football and you find the shark in waist-deep water doing a safety blitz.

A quick Google search reveals that mother sharks give birth to anywhere from one to 14 politely-termed “pups,’’ meaning there could be 13 siblings in the area. Answers.com also indicates that mothers like to watch over their juvenile children — and something tells me they’re not the most laid-back caregivers.

I called Skomal, a widely respected biologist, but his voice mail message said he was “in the field.’’ I’d prefer my shark expert be in the water, but that may just be me.

We live in a state where the government seizes up at the mere prediction of snow. Kids are required to sit in booster seats until just about college. And along comes something truly deserving of every ounce of our fear, great white sharks, and state officials take pains to say they’re no big deal after all.

I can only speak for myself, but I’m not going in the water. To be honest, I won’t even take a bath.

Cape Cod has the largest concentration of miniature golf courses and batting cages on the planet. This long holiday weekend, I’d urge you to make good use of every one of them.

via State’s little white lie – The Boston Globe.

VENTURA, Calif.—Federal wildlife officials are warning swimmers to enter the water at their own risk after great white sharks were spotted feasting on sea lions around the Channel Islands.

The National Park Service says there have been three attacks on California sea lions in the past few months near Santa Barbara Island.

There have been no attacks on humans but because of the potential risk a warning was instituted Wednesday and will remain in effect until further notice.

Officials say great white sightings in Southern California are rare. Migrating sharks usually pass through without stopping for meals.

via Swimmers warned of sharks off SoCal coast – San Jose Mercury News.

BOSTON — State officials and shark experts moved quickly to reassure beachgoers Monday after a tuna boat snagged a great white shark, the first confirmed sighting in Massachusetts waters this summer of one of the sea’s most feared creatures.

The juvenile shark — 6 to 7 feet long and weighing an estimated 150 pounds — was pulled up by Gloucester-based Sweet Dream III on Saturday some 20 miles off the coast in the rich fishing ground known as Stellwagen Bank. The crew tagged the shark and returned it to the sea.

“Sharks are some of the most poorly understood creatures in the sea,” said state Secretary of Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles. “They’re very elusive, hard to track and there’s not a very large body of information about (them).”

But on the danger to humans, Bowles was more certain: “For commonsense swimmers, they don’t pose a threat,” he said.

Common sense, he explained, meant not swimming amid a gathering of seals, a favorite food of great whites.

The last fatal shark attack off Massachusetts was nearly 75 years ago. Indeed, the state’s most famous shark attacks are fictional: The 1975 blockbuster film “Jaws” was shot on Martha’s Vineyard, and the movie is credited with creating a Hollywood-style mythology around great whites that scientists say is not backed up by fact.

Still, experts acknowledge that visits by great whites to New England waters may be on the rise.

“We’ve been seeing a slow increase over the past 10 years in the number of credible sightings,” said Dr. Greg Skomal, a biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, who added that most perceived great white sightings turn out to be something more benign — basking sharks, for example.

Skomal said great whites enjoy feasting on gray seals, the population of which has exploded since protections were put in place in the 1970s. Monomoy Island off Chatham has become one of the more popular gathering spots for gray seals, and swimmers in the area were warned last summer after several sharks were spotted.

Officials said they anticipate more great white sightings this summer but did not foresee beach closings, though Bowles said those decisions are generally made by towns.

The tag placed on the shark would only be useful to scientists if the animal were ever recaptured.

A year ago, state biologists successfully attached more sophisticated electronic tags to five great whites off Cape Cod. In the ensuing months the satellite tracking devices produced a wealth of information about the migratory habits of the sharks in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Skomal is hopeful that more of the electronic tags, which send data via satellite when they detach and surface, can be placed on sharks this summer. Data from four of the great whites tagged with the help of a harpooner last summer (the fifth device surfaced prematurely) revealed that the sharks had left southern New England by October and wintered in waters off northern Florida.

The last of the tags to surface was on April 15 off North Carolina.

Among the more surprising discoveries was that the great white seemed to have a well-defined comfort zone, spending more than 80 percent of their time in 59- to 67-degree water, Skomal said.

“That’s a really narrow temperature range,” he said.

Scientists were also mildly surprised that Atlantic great whites tended to hug the coast — staying within about 200 miles — whereas Pacific sharks have been known to stray as far as Hawaii after feeding off California.

via The Associated Press: Great white shark spotted off Mass. coast.

Fatal shark attacks are rare anywhere in the world, with an average of about five recorded each year globally, but in New England, it's virtually unheard of.

Sightings near local beaches, however, have become an annual occurrence.

A sighting Saturday, which was captured by a Coast Guard camera off York Beach, Maine, appears to be a pair of juvenile basking sharks about 12 feet long, said Dr. John Mandelman, a research biologist at the New England Aquarium.

Though basking sharks are considered harmless to humans, with no positive species identification to work with over the weekend, lifeguards at Hampton Beach patrolled the waters for anything unusual.

“Any large animal, depending on what constitutes a threat, is potentially hazardous in their natural environment due to their sheer size,” Mandelman said. “But a basking shark would never attack a human. They are called basking sharks because the theory is they bask in the sun. They are passive filter feeders.”

Basking sharks are 5 to 7 feet long when born and, in rare instances, grow to as big as 40 feet. While it's early for a sighting so far north, young basking sharks are known to wander close to shore, Mandelman said.

Another sighting a mile off Cape Neddick in southern Maine on Thursday is said to have been a 10-foot porbeagle shark.

Though the sharks are likely chasing a meal and pose little to no threat to humans, these latest shark sightings serve as a reminder that many sharks do swim in local ocean waters.

“There are 15 species of sharks that exist in New England waters that wouldn't be unusual to see in a given instance,” Mandelman said. “There are tons of sharks in New England waters that get close to shore across a myriad of species, especially in the summer months.”

In 2005, ABC news correspondent Jay Schadler, who has his art studio in Amesbury, was swimming off Plum Island when he reported seeing a shark. It, too, turned out to be a basking shark.

There are other species lurking in the deep off New England, however, including makos, tiger sharks and even great whites.

Last year, scientists were shocked by the sighting of several great white sharks off Monomoy Island near Chatham over Labor Day weekend, five of which were tagged for future study. The sharks passed within 75 yards of Hollywood Beach, prompting officials to close the beach to swimmers.

A group of fishermen looking for tuna off Dartmouth last August hooked a 624-pound mako.

And while local shark attacks aren't common, they are not unprecedented.

Joseph Troy, 16, of Dorchester, was swimming with a friend of his uncle in about 10 feet of water, an estimated 150 yards off Mattapoisett in Buzzards Bay in July 1936, when a white shark grabbed his leg and pulled him down. He was rescued and brought to shore but died in surgery.

His was the last fatal shark attack recorded in New England.

Most documented shark attacks in the U.S. take place in Hawaii or Florida, where a 38-year-old kite surfer lost his life in a shark attack in February.

Local dorsal fin sightings are much more likely to be the aforementioned basking sharks or ocean sunfish, another surface sunbather with a large fin that can be mistaken as a shark.

For swimmers, however, common sense still prevails, Mandelman said.

“Swim in pairs, don't swim at dawn or dusk, and don't swim where marine mammals are present,” he said, noting seals can sometimes attract the wrong kind of attention. “The marine mammals tend to be pretty hazardous themselves.”

via Sharks spotted off New England shores » Local News » NewburyportNews.com, Newburyport, MA.

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About this time each year, a fisherman catches a large, pregnant bull shark somewhere in the Tampa Bay area. The angler usually drags the shark ashore and poses, jaws agape, for the obligatory dead fish picture. Then the phone rings. “Is it still safe to swim?” a caller asks. “Of course not,” I respond. “But don’t drive either. You could get killed.” After a long, uncomfortable pause, I laugh and explain that a person is more likely to be killed doing home improvements than by a shark. But nobody ever made a movie about the inherent dangers of house painting. However, let a great white shark loose off a New England shoreline on a summer’s day and you’ve got blockbuster, a horror movie that will withstand the test of time.

Living dinosaurs

One hundred million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, sharks dominated the ocean. Today, while highways and office buildings cover much of the planet’s land now, all that remains of those “terrible lizards” are bones and fossils.

But sharks, nature’s perfect predators, still swim supreme in the sea. Perched atop the food chain, they feed on the weak and the sick, which helps maintain nature’s balance.

Slow to grow and giving birth to only a few pups at a time, a shark’s only enemies are other sharks and humans. Sensitive to overfishing, many marine biologists fear that if too many sharks are caught and killed, entire species may disappear forever.

And thanks to the movie Jaws, sharks in general have a bad reputation that may hasten their demise.

Fact and fiction

Most people are scared of sharks. But the truth is, most sharks are just as scared of humans. Of the 350 species of sharks, only a few are known to be dangerous to humans.

Most shark attacks occur close to land. Marine biologists believe that in most cases, the shark has mistaken the swimmer or surfer for a common food source, such as a seal or large fish.

But sharks are wild animals, and all wild animals should be treated with caution and respect. Almost any large shark, 6 feet or longer, can be considered a potential threat to humans.

Three species – the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), the tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvieri) and the bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) - are responsible for most attacks.

“People have this impression that if a shark sees you that it wants to attack,” said Brent Winner, a shark expert with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg. “But that is a myth. If you look at the records, most attacks are bite and release.”

Most attacks in Florida involve surfers in Volusia and Brevard counties.

“Surfers are in the water longer than swimmers,” Winner said. “The longer you spend in the water the more likely you are to run into a shark.”

Four near our shores

Hammerhead

The great hammerhead, which can reach lengths of 20 feet and more than 1,200 pounds, is feared as a man-eater, but in reality, this odd-looking fish is more interested in eating stingrays. Hammerheads are often found with stingray barbs sticking out of their mouths. One unfortunate specimen had been stung 50 times.

Tiger

The tiger, along with the great white and bull, is one of the world’s most dangerous carnivores. Reaching lengths of 17 feet, the tiger is an opportunistic feeder. This shark gets its name from the dark stripes that cover its body early in life but disappear as it grows older. A favorite food is sea turtle, which the tigers crush with their thick, jagged teeth.

Black tip

One of the most common inshore species of sharks, the black tip is so named because of the easily recognizable black markings on the ends of its fins. A fish-eater that feeds close to piers and beaches, black tips often swim near bathers without incident.

Bull

Possibly the most dangerous shark, the bull can live for long periods in freshwater. It has been found in the upper Amazon, 2,300 miles from the open sea, and in land-locked bodies of water, such as Lake Nicaragua. Bulls like shallow water and have been implicated in number of unprovoked attacks, including several in the Tampa Bay area.

By the numbers

1 in 11.5 million

Odds of a shark attack on a human

0 in 264.1 million

Odds of a fatal shark attack on a human

231 Number of reported shark attacks between 1956 and 2008 in Volusia County, making it the shark attack capital of the world

Play it safe

Although your chances of being killed by a bull shark are less than your chances of being struck by lightning, you can take some steps to protect yourself. Here are a few tips, courtesy of the International Shark Attack File in Gainesville:

• Avoid swimming near the mouths of rivers or bays, areas favored by bull sharks.

• Do not swim near schools of baitfish. Bull sharks may be nearby.

• When spearfishing, be ready to drop your catch. Bull sharks are attracted by speared fish.

• Avoid swimming at night or early in the morning, when sharks are most active.

Worst-case scenario

A University of Florida study showed shark attacks on humans are more likely to occur:

• On a Sunday (more people go to the beach on that day of the week, of course)

• In water less than 6 feet deep (that’s typically the depth swimmers favor at the beach)

• Between dusk and dawn (feeding time)

• During a new moon (tides influence bait)

• To those wearing black-and-white bathing suits (researchers believe the contrast is a factor)

Source: The International Shark Attack File; odds are from Year 2000 USA Beach and Injuries Fatalities report

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Wow this thing is just huge. But why’d they have to kill it?

A group of fishermen were delighted when they caught a shark in the warm waters off Australia’s east coast.

So imagine their surprise when there was a bigger tug and they realised their catch was being swallowed by an even bigger fish.

This giant, weighing one and a quarter tonnes and measuring 20ft long, was caught off the north coast of New South Wales and is thought to be at least 40 years old.
Monster from the deep: Shark museum boss Vic Hislop with the giant hammerhead shark caught off NSW’s northern coast

Vic Hislop, who runs a shark museum in Queensland, was so excited by news of the catch that he bought the shark, which died as it was hauled to shore.

‘It’s a magnificent specimen, that’s for sure,’ said Mr Hislop. ‘I’m planning to freeze it and then put it on display at the shark museum.’

Some species of hammerheads are on the global endangered list but they are not renowned for attacking humans, unlike the man-eating great white shark.

What might be a warning for swimmers to exercise caution about where they chose to swim is Mr Hislop’s comment to Brisbane’s Courier Mail that ‘while this one is huge, it’s not the biggest one I’ve seen’.

Sharks are known to feed at dawn and dusk, so people are advised to avoid the ocean at those times to further reduce their small chance of a shark attack.

Hammerheads, which are found in warm waters around the world, get their name from the shape of their heads, which are flattened and extend sideways.

This is thought to help them move in close to their prey and to find food on the sea bed.

While they are not notorious for killing humans, the International Shark Attack file lists them as seventh among sharks that pose a danger to people, the most dangerous being the great white.

In recent years there have been 33 reported hammerhead attacks on humans, but none have been fatal.