After someone was bitten by what is believed to be a shark off Jacksonville’s coast for the second time in six weeks, lifeguards and surfers are blaming it on more people in the water, not more sharks.
Clayton Schulz, a 20-year-old pitcher for the University of North Florida Ospreys, was surfing about 4:30 p.m. Friday when something snatched and shook his left foot.
He didn’t see what bit him, but Schulz said he could feel teeth and believed it was a shark. He was in stable condition this week at Shands Jacksonville hospital, where he got about 300 stitches to close the wounds.
“He’s doing well,” his father, Peter Schulz, said on Monday. He said he expects his son will be released from the hospital this week. Doctors have said they expect a nearly full recovery.
The attack is at least the second bite injury reported in Jacksonville Beach since June 10, when a woman was bitten in waist-deep water a few feet from shore. She was treated for a minor wound, which was described as an outline of a small mouth with teeth.
Officials aren’t sure it was a shark that bit Schulz. Barracudas, bluefish and stingrays can also bite, said Capt. Thomas Wright of Jacksonville Beach Ocean Rescue. Before June 10, it had been about four years since a shark attack was reported in Jacksonville Beach.
“It’s kind of unusual to have two bites that close together,” Wright said.
Likely, it’s because of the number of people in the water, he said.
There have been no official reports of shark bites in the Ponte Vedra Beach area. The last reported shark bite occurred there last year in the Vilano Beach area, said Jeremy Robshaw, spokesman for St. Johns County Fire Rescue.
Swimmers and surfers must use their judgment about entering the water. Beaches lifeguards post purple warning flags for dangerous marine life. But that’s usually when scores of jellyfish arrive and dozens of stings are reported, not when sharks are swimming around.
Sharks are always out there, Wright said.
“That’s where the sharks live,” he said. “You’re in their house. If you’re concerned about that, you shouldn’t be out there.”
When Schulz was bitten, a waist-to-chest-high swell had brought out more surfers than usual, said Mitch Kaufmann, director of the North Florida district of the Eastern Surfing Association. When the surf is decent, few places between Jacksonville Beach and Atlantic Beach aren’t crowded, increasing the chance of a shark attack, he said.
“Shark attacks are still so rare that you really don’t need to worry about it,” Kaufmann said. “You do need to be aware of sharks and keep your eye out, but there are more people in the water than ever, it seems like.”
Sharks are so common that some bites aren’t even reported, said Tim Ellis, a Ponte Vedra Beach resident and member of the First Coast Wavemasters Society.
In June, Matt Searcy, another surfer in his 20s, was attacked in the Ponte Vedra Beach area and received 30 stitches, but that received no media attention, Ellis said.
He was dismayed by the severity of Schulz’s wound. “That’s a major deal when it requires 300 stitches,” Ellis said. “Anytime you have a shark attack, people who don’t regularly go in the ocean hear about it and it makes them fearful.”
Jim Dunlop, who owns Mystic Surfboards custom board manufacturing in Jacksonville Beach, said he’s had plenty of brushes with sharks along the First Coast over the decades.
He has seen shark fins in the water, one that measured 8 feet from the dorsal to the tail fin, meaning the shark could have been up to 12 feet long.
“I’ve seen big sharks. They’re here,” Dunlop said. “You look at the beach any weekend with all the people wading around, I’m surprised there’s not more [attacks.]”
Kaufmann predicted the latest attack won’t harm enthusiasm for surfing.
On Saturday, the day after Schulz’s attack, 150 youths showed up for the Super Grom Clinic on the south side of the fishing pier to learn how to surf.
