An oceanic white tip shark badly mauled four Russian tourists swimming close to their beach hotels in two separate attacks at an Egyptian Red Sea resort, a local conservation official said on Wednesday.

Director of Sinai Conservation Mohammed Salem said the shark attacked two Russians swimming in the Ras Nasrani area near the famed Sharm el-Sheikh resort in the Sinai Peninsula and bit their arms off.

Shark (Illustration)

Photo by: AP

The same shark may also have been involved in an attack on another pair of Russians on Tuesday swimming close to the resort beach, he added.

The shark badly injured a middle-aged woman’s legs and back and bit off her hand. She had a heart attack and had to be resuscitated at the hospital.

The second victim, a 70-year-old woman was found with her right hand and left leg torn off.

Diving instructor Hassan Salem (no related to Mohammed Salem) said he was on a dive at the same time of the attack and was circled by the same shark before it went after the couple.

I was able to scare the shark away by blowing bubbles in its face, but then saw it swim to a woman and bite her legs, he told The Associated Press.

Salem said the water turned red with the blood from the attack, and he rushed to take the diver he was training out of the water.

All four victims were flown to Cairo for medical treatment and were in critical condition.

A spokesman for the Russian embassy in Cairo confirmed that two Russians were attacked Tuesday, but he was only aware of a single Ukranian involved in a shark attack the following day. The discrepancy could not be immediately explained.

Mohammed Salem said coast guard authorities were hunting for the shark and have issued a warning for swimmers to stay out of the water in Sharm el-Sheikh, a famed scuba diving destination.

He said Egypt sees one to two fatal shark attacks a year and they increase as the number of tourists and swimmers in the water rises.

via Tourists maimed in Red Sea shark attack – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Nineteen-year-old Elyse Frankcom was leading a swimming with dolphins encounter in waters off western Australia on Saturday when the shark bit into her hip and buttocks.

“As the shark bit her, it brushed aside a fairly large man who grabbed hold of the tail of the shark, which then made it let go,” Fremantle Sea Rescue senior skipper Frank Pisani said.

There were reportedly two dolphins by Ms Frankcom’s side when she dived into the seven-metre deep water and a shark came up from the bottom and bit into her.

Ms Frankcom has had surgery for her injuries and was in a stable condition in hospital on Sunday, and was expected to be released soon.

Media reports said the unnamed hero refused to speak to journalists when the tour boat returned to dock. “All I want is the girl to be OK,” he reportedly said.

via Australian swimmer saves woman by pulling shark’s tail – Telegraph.

Three Southern California beaches closed after a fatal shark attack Friday were scheduled to reopen this morning, and some surfers say they’ll be in the water.

Surf Beach, which is open to the public, and two beaches open to anyone with access to Vandenberg Air Force Base were closed Friday after a shark fatally injured Lucas Ransom, 19, of Romoland, Calif., as he was heading out to catch a wave on his boogie board.

The 72-hour closure expires at 9 a.m. unless officers of the base’s conservation law enforcement division, who have been patrolling the beaches and monitoring the ocean with binoculars, saw a reason to keep it closed, base spokesman Jeremy Eggers said.

A photo provided by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department showed a 13-inch chunk missing from Ransom’s board. The department said Ransom, a junior majoring in chemical engineering at the University of California-Santa Barbara, had a massive wound to his left leg.

Ransom was bodyboarding with friend Matthew Garcia when he was pulled under the water. He resurfaced with his leg nearly severed.

“When the shark hit him, he just said, ‘Help me, dude!’ He knew what was going on,” Garcia said. “You just saw a red wave and this water is blue — as blue as it could ever be — and it was just red.”

The incident chilled surfers.

“Twenty-five percent of the people who normally surf on the weekend were in the water,” said Bill Bookout, owner of the Pismo Beach Surf Shop about 40 miles north. “I’ve had about half the rentals I normally do.”

Despite beautiful waves, Book-out also stayed out.

“Sharks can travel up to 50 miles a day,” he said. “That shark could have been here Saturday.”

Daniel Dunaetz, who was working at the Surf Connection in Lompoc, just outside the base, said surfers are aware of the risks, but many still seemed rattled.

“Whenever people do talk about it, they’re real leery. They just seem scared,” Dunaetz said.

Authorities have issued several warnings this year after great white shark sightings up and down the California coast. There have been 12 fatal shark attacks in California since the 1920s, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.

“You’re way more likely to be hurt in an auto accident than to be hurt or killed by a shark,” said Andy Nosal, a biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Eggers said swimmers and surfers can improve their odds by not wearing anything shiny, such as jewelry or a reflective bathing suit, that can make them resemble fish, and by paying attention to other wildlife. “For example, if seals or dolphins are moving quickly toward shore, that could be a sign that a threat is near,” he said.

Bookout said he’d be surfing this morning.

“To surf is one of the most beautiful things we have in life,” he said. “The freedom you feel when you’re out there cannot be matched.”

via Despite shark attack, some set to surf as beaches reopen – USATODAY.com.

Not sure what exactly the mystery is here. It’s obviously a Great White. There aren’t many types of sharks that are 18 feet long. And the witness said it was grey on the top and white on the bottom…

(CBS/AP)  The huge shark that attacked and killed a body-surfer off the central California coast may have been a great white, a spokesman for the local sheriff’s office says.

The victim, Lucas Ransom, 19, was body-boarding two feet away from his friend, Matthew Garcia, who was surfing. Garcia says he heard a desperate cry for help. Within seconds, a shark flashed out of the water, bit into Ransom’s leg and pulled him under in a cloud of blood.

“When the shark hit him, he just said, ‘Help me, dude!’ He knew what was going on,” Garcia told the Associated Press as he recounted his friend’s death. “It was really fast. You just saw a red wave and this water is blue – as blue as it could ever be – and it was just red, the whole wave.”

As huge waves broke over his head, Garcia tried to find Lucas Ransom in the surf, but couldn’t. He decided to get help, but turned around again as he was swimming to shore and saw Ransom’s red body-board pop up. Garcia swam to his friend and did chest compressions as he brought him to shore.

The 19-year-old already appeared dead and his leg was mauled, he said.

“He was just floating in the water. I flipped him over on his back and under-hooked his arms. I was pressing on his chest and doing rescue breathing in the water,” Garcia said. “He was just kind of lifeless, just dead weight.”

The University of California, Santa Barbara, junior had a severe wound to his left leg and died a short time later on Surf Beach, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

The beach, 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, is on the property of Vandenberg Air Force Base, in Lompoc, Calif., but is open to the public.

Sheriff’s deputies patrolled the coastline to search for Ransom’s missing leg but were only able to recover the body-board, which had a 1-foot segment on the side bitten off.

Federal and state Fish and Game officials were working to identify the type of shark that attacked Ransom.

“The size of the teeth and the width (of the bite in the body-board) are going to help the experts determine what kind of shark this is,” Drew Sugars, of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, told co-anchor Chris Wragge on “The Early Show on Saturday Morning.” “We have not determined the type. The witness (Garcia) did say that the top of the shark was gray, the bottom was white. This is typically a great white, but we’re not in a position to confirm that, Hopefully, by Monday, we’ll be able to determine what type of shark this is, but the teeth marks will help us in that determination.”

Sugars says officials hope the shark itself “is long gone. We’re not going to search for it at this point.”

As is protocol at Vandenberg, he adds, the beach involved will be closed for three days. Nearby beaches have warning signs posted but remain open.

The ocean was calm and beautiful before the attack, with large wave sets that the friends had been tracking all week as they moved down the West Coast from Alaska, Garcia said.

The shark, which breached the water on its side, appeared about 18 feet long, Garcia said.

“There was no sign, there was nothing. It was all very fast, very stealth,” said Garcia, 20.

Authorities have issued several warnings this year after great white shark sightings up and down the California coast.

There have been nearly 100 shark attacks in California since the 1920s, including a dozen that were fatal, according to the California Department of Fish and Game. But attacks have remained relatively rare even as the population of swimmers, divers and surfers sharing the waters has soared.

The last shark attack on Surf Beach was in 2008, when what was believed to be a great white shark bit a surfer’s board. The surfer was not harmed.

The last fatal attack in California was that same year, when triathlete David Martin, 66, bled to death after a great white shark bit his legs about 150 yards off of a San Diego County beach.

Randy Fry, 50, died from a great white attack in 2004 while diving off the coast of Mendocino, north of San Francisco Bay.

In 2003, a great white shark killed Deborah Franzman, 50, as she swam at Avila Beach, about 30 miles north of Vandenberg.

via Killer Shark May Have Been Great White – The Early Show – CBS News.

LOS ANGELES — A 19-year-old surfer was killed Friday in a rare shark attack a short distance off a California beach, when the animal pulled him under and inflicted a “massive wound,” police said.

Authorities closed local beaches for 72 hours after the attack by a shark described as up to 20 feet (6.1 meters) long.

The victim, identified as Lucas McKaine Ransom, “was boogie boarding on the break line about 100 yards off the beach with his friend when a shark suddenly pulled Ransom under the water,” said an updated statement.

“Ransom suffered a massive wound to his left leg and appeared to die shortly thereafter,” added the the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, noting that witnesses said the shark was between “14 and 20 feet (4.3-6.1 meters) long.”

The attack occurred at Surf Beach at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) near Santa Barbara, which is some 130 miles (215 kilometers) northwest up the Pacific coast from Los Angeles.

“Following standard protocol, VAFB has ordered the closure of all base beaches… for the next 72 hours,” while local authorities are posting warning signs at nearby beaches.

Earlier police had said the victim was in his early 20s and was in the water with a friend at the time of the attack. Officials were “working to identify the type of shark,” they added.

The last death of this kind involved a great white shark in California in 2008, when a 66-year-old man was attacked as he swam with friends off a beach in San Diego.

via AFP: California surfer killed in rare shark attack: officials.

COOS BAY — An Oregon man says a great white shark knocked him off his surfboard near Winchester Bay.

David Lowden told “The World” newspaper in Coos Bay that he was paddling his board last week near the south jetty of the Umpqua River when a shark he estimated at nearly 14 feet broke the surface behind him.

“As I’m flying off the board, I got a good look at the shape of the shark,” said Lowden, who was not injured in the encounter.

The shark emerged halfway from the water and broke the fins off his surfboard.

“That probably scared it a bit. It thrashed around a bit … and after that it disappeared,” he said.

Lowden, 29, and another man surfed to the beach while a third surfer, Lowden’s friend, Mark Lorincz, of North Bend, clambered onto the jetty and ditched his board.

Lowden phoned the U.S. Coast Guard to report the encounter, then contacted the Shark Research Committee, a private group that tracks shark attack data.

A release from that organization characterized it as an “unprovoked shark attack.” It was the only recorded attack this year in Oregon, and the fifth along the Pacific Coast.

Alan Shanks, a professor at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston, said the encounter described by Lowden is typical shark behavior.

Shanks said great white sharks often attack from below to stun seals, sea lions and other large prey.

“These guys are primarily big-thing eaters,” Shanks said. “A surfboard from below has a silhouette not unlike a marine mammal.”

Lowden said local surfers frequently see sharks. He has spotted six sharks while surfing on the Oregon coast, including one that bumped his board in 2006.

“I wasn’t that surprised, to tell you the truth,” Lowden said. “It’s not the first time I’ve had an encounter.”

via Oregon man reports encounter with great white shark | statesmanjournal.com | Statesman Journal.

COOS BAY, Ore. — An Oregon man says a great white shark knocked him off his surfboard near Winchester Bay.

The World newspaper in Coos Bay reported that 29-year-old David Lowden was paddling his board near the south jetty of the Umpqua River last week when a shark he estimated at nearly 14 feet broke the surface behind him and sent him flying.

Lowden said the shark emerged halfway from the water, broke the fins from his surfboard, and then thrashed around before it disappeared.

Lowden and another man surfed to the beach while a third surfer clambered onto the jetty and ditched his board. Lowden was not injured but he filled out a report.

Oregon Institute of Marine Biology professor Alan Shanks said the encounter was typical behavior for great white sharks. ——— Information from: The World, http://www.theworldlink.com

via SHARK ATTACK: Great white knocks Oregon man off surfboard – Breaking News | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news.

According WVEC 13 News the species that bit a teen surfer off the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach has still not been identified. Paramedics believe it was a species of shark that bit Caleb Kauchak on the knee and ankle. However, it seems that confirmation of the attacking species based on bite marks has yet to be made.

Dr. Chip Cotton of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences was interviewed by 13 News and speculated that the attacking species could have been a spinner shark chasing bait fish. However, it seems that Dr. Cotton was merely being interviewed as a shark expert for the report, as he later states that “whoever is doing the investigation” will be able to distinguish species bites based on the upper and lower bite patterns.

via Species still unidentified in Virginia Beach suspected shark attack – The Dorsal Fin.

A shark attack in Sandbridge sent a surfer to the hospital Friday afternoon.

The teenager was surfing off of Sandfiddler Rd. around 4:00 p.m. He was bit several times on his left knee and ankle.

He was rushed to the hospital but is expected to be fine.

Rescue crews believe the attack was by a small shark.

Bruce Nedelka, an EMS spokesman, said, “The shark wasn’t big enough to pull him down into the water, so most likely it was only a small shark.”

The teen’s surfboard is being looked at so the type of shark can be determined.

via Small shark bites teenage surfer in Sandbridge – dailypress.com.

Khanyisile Momoza, 29, was attacked as he harvested valuable perlemoen shells in the waters near Gansbaai in South Africa.

The fisherman was among a group of 12 poachers who had tried to swim to safety after spotting the shark in shallow waters.

A friend of Mr Momoza, who witnessed the attack, said: “There was screaming and crying. We just swam, we didn’t look back.

“We were swimming in a group but he was a bit behind us.

“It jumped out of the water with him and then it took him down.”

The attack took place on Tuesday between Dyer Island and Pearly Beach, east of Cape Town.

In an interview with the Weekend Argus local newspaper, the victim’s friend told how the poaching group had left the beach at 6am and swum for two hours before reaching the island three miles offshore, where they began hunting for perlemoen shellfish.

The men were swimming back to shore with their catch when the great white approached.

The survivors admitted they had been too scared for their own lives to help the stricken swimmer and raced back to dry land.

Once ashore the group alerted authorities to the tragedy.

Illegal harvesting of perlemoen is big business in South Africa, where the valuable shellfish are common along coastal areas.

The molluscs’ fleshy insides are considered a delicacy similar to oysters, and either served raw or cooked in seafood dishes.

But widespread farming of the shells has sparked fears the population could plummet.

In 2007 South African authorities listed the species, also known as abalone, as endangered with the global wildlife protection body CITES.

The restrictions were loosened in July this year, although it remains illegal to harvest perlemeon without a licence.

However hundreds of local fishermen are believed to continue to work in the illegal trade.

Many poor workers risk arrest or injury to hunt for the wild shells, whose meat can be worth up to £25 a kilo.

The shark attack victim’s friend told the Argus his group went perlemoen fishing around once a week and needed the money to provide food for their families.

Gans Bay, known in Afrikaans as Gansbaai, is famously the centre of South Africa’s great white shark population.

In recent years some experts have warned the increase in commercial “shark dive tourism” has encouraged great whites to inhabit shallower waters.

Every day hundreds of tourists pay to experience a close encounter with the creatures, which are enticed with food to come close to boats.

Some fear the sharks are now commonly inhabiting waters where humans are more likely to be swimming or working.

The poacher is the second person this year to be killed by a shark in South Africa.

In January tourist Lloyd Skinner was killed by a great white as he swam a few metres off the beach in Fish Hoek near Cape Town.

Shocked holiday-makers watched from the shore as the 47-year-old was pulled underwater.

via Poacher killed by great white shark – Telegraph.