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A man was killed by sharks in a rare fatal attack this afternoon in the waters off Stuart, authorities said.

Stephen Howard Schafer, 38, of Stuart was kite surfing south of Stuart Beach about 4:15 p.m. when the sharks attacked him, according to Bureau Chief Doug Killane of Martin County Fire-Rescue and Martin County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Rhonda Irons.

A lifeguard through his binoculars spotted the man floating about a quarter-mile offshore in an unguarded stretch of ocean, Irons said. The lifeguard paddled to him on a rescue board, pulled the man away from the sharks and carried him back to shore.

Rescue workers gave the man CPR before paramedics brought him to Martin Memorial Hospital, where he died.

The Martin County Sheriff’s Office was investigating the death, said sheriff’s Capt. Mark McKinley.

“I’ve been here 25 years,” McKinley said. “To my knowledge, this is the first shark-related fatality we’ve seen.”

In fact, Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties have all escaped fatal shark attacks until now, according to the International Shark Attack File compiled at the University of Florida’s Florida Museum of Natural History

Schafer’s friends told TCPalm.com they are shocked by his death.

“I’ve never heard of multiple sharks in this area surrounding someone and fatally wounding him,” said the victim’s childhood friend, Teague Taylor, 36. “He was the nicest person ever.”

On Tuesday, the day before the fatal attack, Taylor told TCPalm.com he was surfing near where his friend was attacked and he saw several sharks.

“You always think in the back of your mind that they (sharks) are out there,” he said.

Jordan Schwartz, who has known Schafer for five years, told TCPalm.com that Schafer was a very experienced kiteboard surfer.

“He was a super nice guy. Always mellow. I don’t think he had any enemies,” he said.

Sharks have been gathering along Palm Beach County beaches recently in their annual chase of baitfish, Palm Beach County Ocean Rescue Lt. Don May said last week when a hammerhead shark was caught off Ocean Reef Park.

Lemon, bull and hammerhead sharks often are seen off area beaches this time of year, Palm Beach County Ocean Rescue Lt. Don May said.

It was unknown whether Stuart Beach would be open Thursday.

According to the International Shark Attack File compiled at the University of Florida’s Florida Museum of Natural History, Martin County had never had a fatal shark attack before. A person was killed in Indian River County in 1998.

The last shark-bite fatality in Florida was in 2005, according to the file, in Walton County in the Panhandle.

However, in 2008, Florida had the most unprovoked attacks in the United States — the total of 32 attacks was equal to the 32 reported in 2007. Surfers/windsurfers were at highest risk, with nearly 57 percent of the reported attacks in the report’s compilation.

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NORTH AMERICA’S TOP SHARK-ATTACK BEACHES

Stephen RegenoldMay 13, 2009
 

 LAUNCH SLIDESHOW

Where to swim at your own risk in North America

 

The year was 1916, and a hot July had delivered thousands of beachgoers to the Jersey Shore. Waves shrugged on the sand, and swimmers bobbed in their bloomers and caps, escaping the heat in the surf and swells of tepid Atlantic waters.

See our slideshow of North America’s Shark-Attack Beaches.

 What happened next—beginning with a death on Long Beach Island—would forever alter America’s collective consciousness toward swimming in the sea: In an unprecedented 11 days, five major shark attacks took place along the Jersey Shore, four of which were fatal.

Reports cited blood turning the water red and sharks following victims toward the beach. Dorsal fins spiked from placid water. Appropriately, a media frenzy ensued. Patrol boats were deployed to kill sharks offshore. Some beaches installed wire mesh to sequester swimmers from anything big and toothy out beyond the break.

 America has never recovered. Indeed, the Jersey Shore attacks of 1916—though an anomaly never seen before or since—branded an image of sharks as monsters that has trickled now through several generations.

“The common public perception today of a shark is that of a man-eater,” said George Burgess, an ichthyologist at the University of Florida who maintains a database called the International Shark Attack File. “We have an innate fear for big predators and natural forces we can’t control.” But as Burgess and others point out, death by shark bite is extremely rare. Shark experts cite statistics to show you can swim and surf with nary a worry at almost any beach on the planet. You are not a seal. Sharks do not want to eat you.

Or do they?

The International Shark Attack File (ISAF), which relies on decades of data, cites more than 2,000 fatal encounters. At beaches like New Smyrna, the cold statistics can become frighteningly real. To date, 210 attacks have been reported there, and in 2007, three swimmers were bitten by sharks and hospitalized.

See our slideshow of North America’s Shark-Attack Beaches.

 Despite the paranoia, millions of people each year surf and swim—literally—with the sharks.

 A top example is New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County, Fla., where Burgess said tiger and black-tip sharks thrive. “Most people who have swum in and around New Smyrna have been within 10 feet of a shark in their lifetime,” he said.

 In Northern California—where deep waters and seal populations draw great white sharks—surfers suit up at places like Stinson Beach to catch waves in a potentially deadly habitat. Patric Douglas, owner of Shark Diver, an ocean guiding outfit in San Francisco, calls Stinson “the granddaddy of all shark beaches.” He said, “It’s common to see 18-footers buzz by surfers bobbing in the waves.”

North America is home to dozens of beaches like New Smyrna where swimmers and sharks intermix, even though the humans may never know it. When the rare attack happens, Burgess said, it’s usually a predatory mistake. “In the surf zone, where many attacks happen, sharks need to make quick decisions,” he said. “Humans on surfboards—hands splashing, feet kicking—can trigger a shark to think there’s trouble or a wounded animal, and it looks like an easy meal.”

 With its thousands of miles of coastlines and millions of beachgoers, the United States sees more shark-human interaction than any other country. Search the ISAF database and you’ll find incidents at beaches from South Carolina to Oregon. There are so many reports, in fact, that California, Florida, Hawaii, North Carolina and Texas each have dedicated sections in the ISAF.

See our slideshow of North America’s Shark-Attack Beaches.

On the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, tiger and hammerhead sharks mix with dolphins and humpback whales. There are dozens of popular surf beaches there, including Velzyland Beach and the Leftovers Break to name two. Though untold thousands surf and swim there each year without incident, attacks do occur.

But according to Laleh Mohajerani, executive director of the shark conservation organization Iemanya Oceanica, sharks are not looking to interfere with humans in the water. Our shark-attack fears are irrational, she said. “You are more likely to be hit by lightning.”

 Indeed, there’s no arguing the numbers. Of the millions of people who enter the ocean each year, almost none are touched.

 But for most people, fiery emotions override even the coldest numbers. A single scary story—be it on the news or in an effects-heavy Hollywood production—will destroy the efforts of hundreds of scientists trying to communicate on research and logic.

From Hawaii to the Caribbean, there are 10 beaches among the most infamous for sharks on the planet. Take a dip if you dare.

See our slideshow of North America’s Shark-Attack Beaches.

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Great essay about sharks. Here’s an excerpt. Make sure to read the whole thing.

Four things EVERYONE needs to know about sharks

1) Sharks do not represent a serious threat to human beings. Yes, some people have died as a result of shark encounters, and any human death is a tragedy, but it is important to keep in mind the relative risk of a shark attack. Of the over 500 species of sharks worldwide, fewer than a dozen have ever been known to kill a human. In an average year, over 650,000 Americans die as a result of heart disease, giving me a 1 in 5 chance of dying of heart disease in my lifetime. In an average year, over 550,000 Americans die from cancer, giving me a 1 in 7 chance of dying from cancer in my lifetime. In an average year, over 40,000 Americans die in car accidents, giving me a 1 in 84 chance of dying in a car accident in my lifetime. In an average year, 1 American dies from a shark attack, giving me a 1 in 3,748,067 chance of dying from a shark attack in my lifetime.

Again, any human death is a tragedy, but when you have a 1 in 5 chance of dying from heart disease and a 1 in 4 million chance of dying from a shark attack, should we really be so concerned about the threat to us that sharks represent?

Millions of Americans spend time in the oceans each year. Sharks have been evolving incredible sensory systems, part of what makes them such incredible hunters, for over 400 million years. They can also swim a great deal faster than we can. If they wanted to attack humans, a lot more than one American a year would be killed by a shark.  Sharks are simply not a serious threat to us.

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I wouldn’t really like the waters being chummed near where I swimming either.

Swimmers upset about chumming

By Tami Osborne, WINK News

Story Created: May 6, 2009 at 11:57 PM EDT

Story Updated: May 6, 2009 at 11:57 PM EDT 

LITTLE HICKORY ISLAND, Fla. – Swimmers in the northern part of Little Hickory Island in Bonita Beach say people are fishing for sharks too close to their swimming holes. Now, they want the city to do something about it.

“We’re in the water here, and they’re over there throwing stuff in the water, bringing sharks into the water. How insane is that?” Tanya Marsh says.

What the anglers are doing is called chumming. They toss a mixture of fish blood and guts into the water with a goal of catching a shark. But beach-goers say they’re doing it too close to them.

“Its a little ridiculous, that you’re going to fish for sharks right here, when people are swimming out here,” Chris Caliendo says.

According to the International Shark Attack File, Lee County has seen only a handful of shark bites in the last 100 years, and never a fatal attack.

Still, with the complaints coming to the surface, the Bonita Springs City Attorney is asking the council whether they feel some regulations on chumming are needed.

While some beach-goers are all for it, anglers say fishing already has too many regulations and doesn’t need any more.

“The sharks are going to be out here, whether there’s someone chumming or not,” Jonathan Stokes says.

“If you don’t want to be where they’re catching fish, don’t swim where they’re standing in the water casting out there,” Master Bait & Tackle owner Ken Strasen says.

The Bonita Springs City Council has tabled the issue until its next meeting on May 20th.

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The Ocean’s Most Fearsome Predators Written By Jim W. Harper    NO, IT’S NOT SHARKS — IT HOMO SAPIENS   What’s the one word you don’t want to hear at the beach? No, it’s not what you think. “Police!” In 2003 a police SUV ran over and killed a French tourist sunbathing on Miami Beach. If you were thinking “shark,” you should know that no tourist in Miami has ever died from a shark attack. In fact there has never been a confirmed death by shark in Miami.  Peter Benchley, the creator ofJaws, spent his later years fighting to save sharks. I saw him speak about shark conservation at the University of Miami shortly before he died in 2006. Sharks had become the victim, he realized, and man had become the jaws of death. Every year some 100 million wild sharks are killed by man. How many men are killed annually by sharks? About ten. The real difference, however, is that the human population and its capacity to harvest the sea is rising, whereas the shark and other fish populations are shrinking. It’s the same sad story in the sea as on land: Man is taking too much and caring too little. Global studies on sharks estimate that their populations have shriveled in the past century by 90 percent. Moreover, those that remain are being pursued more relentlessly than ever. But why care about such a dangerous animal? The answer is essentially the same as the answer about insects and snakes and bears. People may find them terrifying and inconvenient, but their existence is linked to everything that humans depend on. Balanced watersheds, including their inhabitants from the microscopic to the intimidating, provide clean drinking water. Insects pollinate our crops; animals are our main source of protein. It’s the simple circle of life that makes each species valuable. Sharks are valued for their fins. Shark-fin soup is a delicacy in Chinese culture, and demand for shark fins has skyrocketed as East Asian countries have gained wealth. Check out the 2007 documentary Sharkwater to gain insight on this international market and inhumane fishery. The most barbaric fishers will slice the fins off of live sharks and dump the living bodies back into the water to die a slow death. They don’t want to carry the extra weight of the shark’s body, which is much less valuable than the fins. Shark-finning is illegal in the U.S. and many other countries, but the practice is nearly impossible to regulate on the high seas. It requires a correction from the marketplace. One guy in Miami could care less about the fate of sharks. “Mark the Shark” runs a popular charter-fishing operation and claims to be the world’s leading shark fisherman. Sportfishing is not the main enemy of sharks (industrial fishing is), but killing sharks for sport gives the impression that there are many to spare. At the other end of the spectrum are shark conservationists, and South Florida is home to many of the world’s best. The granddaddy of shark conservation is Sonny Gruber, a Miami Beach native who founded the Bimini Shark Lab and retired not long ago from the University of Miami. Following in his flippers is current doctoral candidate at UM and great-white-shark fanatic Neil Hammerschlag, who has led several groups of South Florida high school students on shark expeditions to Africa. Check out his conservation Website and awesome shark photos at neil4sharks.org. At the University of Florida is the International Shark Attack File. It runs one of my favorite Websites, which attempts to answer the question on every beachgoer’s mind: How long will it be before I’m attacked and killed by a rouge shark? The data tells us that Florida leads the world in shark attacks. The good news is that the vast majority of attacks are not deadly, and they are concentrated in the state’s northeastern quadrant (be careful in Daytona Beach). According to the International Shark Attack File, the Florida Keys has not had a fatal shark attack since 1952 and Miami-Dade since 1961, although Broward registered a fatality in 2001. Both of these fatalities involved scuba divers, as did a fatality last year in the Bahamas, where diving expeditions feed sharks. Shark-feeding is banned in Florida. What’s the total number of shark attacks in Miami-Dade during the past century? Ten. Fatalities? One. What’s the number of attacks in Florida from the great white, the shark portrayed in Jaws? Zero. More facts: Most attacks occur on surfers. Alligator attacks in Florida are less common but more deadly. More people are killed annually by dogs, but those attacks don’t make the news. Simply put, sharks are not out to get us, but they do bite. If they taste a surfer, they usually spit it out. They much prefer turtles and seals. Humans, on the other hand, are definitely out to eliminate the shark, although most people remain ignorant of the pillage. Instead of adding ignorance to fear, be aware of this situation and study it. You will find that sharks deserve more than just respect. They need protection — like the wolf and the polar bear and the sea turtle. Add this bumper sticker to your collection: Man Attacks Shark. Save the Shark.

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Zihuatanejo surfers hope last May’s deadly shark-attack spree was a fluke

8:30 AM, May 1, 2009

Last May was a deadly and precarious month for surfers visiting the sun-drenched beaches north of Zihuatanejo in the Mexican state of Guerrero.

Bull sharks, for some reason, gathered in large numbers. They were believed responsible for killing two surfers. A third surfer, Bruce Grimes, was more fortunate. The estimated nine-foot shark that raked his arm and hand (pictured, at right) after bumping his surfboard in an apparent attempt to knock him from it, did not pursue Grimes as he paddled toward shore.

The attacks, which occurred within a three-week period, generated “Jaws”-like mania and led to the erection of lifeguard towers and establishment of a shark patrol along a stretch of coastline that seasonally lures hundreds of surfers from Southern California and elsewhere.

Now it’s May once more and some might be wondering whether the phenomenon will be repeated.

In the aftermath of last season’s attacks I toured the beaches with Ed Kunze, a longtime resident and fishing guide. We also visited Majahua, a village of commercial fishermen, who keep close tabs on shark activity. They refused to dive last May but are currently combing the bottom for oysters, octopus and conch.

Ramon Caranza told Kunze this week that there “may not be” as many sharks in the area this season. More important, he said, there’s an abundant supply of natural food, making sharks less dangerous to humans. Last May, Caranza said, natural food was scarce and whatever he caught in his nets was preyed upon by sharks. Caranza spoke as he repaired gaping holes in his home-fashioned monofilament nets.

George Burgess, a shark expert at the University of Florida, labeled Caranza’s theory “an interesting mix of observation and speculation.” Burgess said last year’s congregation of sharks was probably the result of unusual oceanographic conditions. He also visited the region last year and noted that two of the surfers were attacked near river mouths, which are known to attract sharks during high runoff periods.

That runoff season is just getting underway. Surfers are riding waves and more surfers are expected over the coming weeks. There are bound to be shark sightings or alleged sightings. Already a small shark was reportedly seen in a wave face at Troncones, site of a fatal attack last May.

More than likely, last year’s spate of attacks was a fluke and won’t be repeated. But if you ask me, anyone surfing down there alone, near one of the river mouths, is asking for trouble. 

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Tiger sharks hit-and-run hunters, research shows

Wide-ranging predators use element of surprise, don’t linger after kill

By Christie Wilson

Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai’i’s tiger sharks roam large expanses and make brief, infrequent visits to shallow coastal sites used by swimmers and surfers, according to a new study.

Their wide-ranging movements and long absences between quick visits to a location may be a hunting strategy that prevents prey from anticipating when tiger sharks will appear, said Carl Meyer, a biologist with the Hawai’i Institute for Marine Biology.

“After arriving at a reef site, tiger sharks probably have only a short window in which to successfully ambush prey because potential quarry soon detect the shark and evade capture. Ranging over wide areas and avoiding predictable patterns of behavior may help tiger sharks to retain the element of surprise while hunting,” he said.

For years, tiger sharks were thought to be territorial, prowling limited areas. Previous studies have shown they swim long distances, even across oceans, but Meyer’s nearly four-year study is the first long-term examination of their movement patterns.

“There are still a lot of people who think that tiger sharks live in fairly small areas, perhaps along one reef. We have quite clearly shown this isn’t the case,” he said. “These sharks are wide-ranging animals, and their pattern of behavior is such that they move continually.”

The research, funded by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’s Division of Aquatic Resources, also calls into question the oft-repeated advice that staying out of the ocean at dusk and dawn can reduce the risk of shark attack. Meyer’s study found little evidence linking the risk of encountering a tiger shark to the time of day. The transmitter-equipped tiger sharks in his study were detected inshore at all times of the day and night.

In fact, 60 percent of shark attacks in Hawai’i occur between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when more people are in the water.

“The evidence suggests that it doesn’t make any difference. When you look at when people are getting bitten by sharks, there’s no reason to be particularly concerned about (the dawn and dusk hours) based on what we’ve seen of tiger shark movements,” he said.

George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said whether it’s prudent to avoid the ocean at dawn and dusk “depends on the shark and on the circumstances. That advice is given as general advice for sharks across the board, and it should be tailored to a particular area.”

In any event, it may be wise to avoid swimming at times when visibility is low, he said.

“In most areas of the world, shark fishermen fish at night. That’s the best time because the sharks are more active,” he said. “Tiger sharks feed by day and are happy to feed by night, when they have a competitive advantage. They’re professional predators, and we’re amateur invaders.”

OFTEN IMPLICATED

Tiger sharks, which can grow to 18 feet long and have distinctive blunt snouts and vertical bars on their sides, are most frequently implicated in shark-bite incidents in Hawai’i. They have been responsible for at least 20 of the 44 shark attacks in the state over the past 10 years, according to the Division of Aquatic Resources.

Meyer and Burgess emphasize the risk of attack remains extremely low despite the occasional presence of large sharks at popular beaches and bays.

“We periodically detected large tiger sharks in shallow waters at swimming beaches during the day. These sharks were apparently unseen by ocean users and there was no interaction with any people present. People who regularly swim, surf or dive in Hawaiian waters have probably been close to a large tiger shark without knowing it,” Meyer said.

The shark movement patterns also reinforce the conclusions of previous studies that culling programs are unlikely to be effective in either catching sharks responsible for attacks or reducing an already low attack risk.

Meyer and his team tracked 15 sharks using an array of 61 acoustic receivers installed on the ocean floor around the islands of O’ahu, Maui, Kaho’olawe and Hawai’i. The sharks were hooked and brought up alongside the team’s vessel, where they were turned on their backs, putting them into a trancelike state. Small ultrasound transmitters were surgically implanted through a small incision in the abdominal wall before the sharks were released. The entire process took less than 20 minutes, Meyer said.

The listening devices recorded the dates and times of visits by the tagged tiger sharks and were retrieved by divers at six-month intervals from December 2003 to June 2007. The information they contained was used to plot shark movements.

Meyer said shark visits to specific acoustic receiver sites were typically brief — averaging about three minutes in duration — unpredictable and interspersed by absences of weeks, months or even years.

Most coral reef predators, including Galapagos and gray reef sharks and ulua, have very predictable patterns of behavior and often use the same day and night habitats for years, he said. Tiger sharks may move on soon after arriving in an area because reef fish, turtles and other prey become wary and difficult to catch.

COASTAL PATROLLING

Most of the sharks in the study exhibited periods of coastal patrolling behavior, swimming back and forth along 10 to 70 miles of West Hawai’i coastline, interspersed with absences from the listening array.

However, three of the sharks spent up to several days in the vicinity of Honokohau Harbor in Kona on repeat visits. Meyer said that’s probably because the dumping of fish carcasses into the harbor switched the animals from wider-ranging movement patterns to scavenging behavior associated with a predictable source of food.

He advised that harbor users might want to avoid rewarding tiger sharks for visiting sites used for ocean recreation.

The predators also made rare, brief appearances at other popular ocean recreation spots, including Kealakekua Bay and the Kona Coast State Park on the Big Island, Honolua Bay on Maui, and Kane’ohe Bay on O’ahu.

The study notes that tiger sharks are known to switch foraging strategies to take advantage of seasonally abundant resources or inexperienced prey. Each summer in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, for example, tiger sharks temporarily cease their wide-ranging behavior to congregate around sandy islets to gorge on fledgling albatrosses.

Although the study provided new insight into the long-term movements of tiger sharks, Meyer said, much remains to be discovered about these elusive predators.

“Although we now have a much better understanding of tiger shark movements in Hawaiian waters, we still have many unanswered questions about their basic biology. We still need to figure out how frequently they capture prey, where they go to breed and how often the tiger sharks found in Hawai’i travel to other areas of the Pacific,” he said.

Other researchers involved in the study, published April 17 in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, are Timothy Clark, Yannis Papastamatiou, Nicholas Whitney and Kim Holland.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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Ohio Man Shares Survival Story After Shark Attack

SYLVANIA, Ohio — An Ohio attorney who was attacked by a shark while he was on a vacation in 2007 told his story of survival to 10TV News.

 

Harvey Miller’s story made national headlines.

The husband and father of four was snorkeling on Oahu, Hawaii, when he was attacked by a tiger shark.  The attack was the first in the area in almost 50 years.

Here is how Miller described the attack to 10TV News:

“We were in Hawaii, July 17, 2007, so that date will stick in my mind forever”

“It was just like any other day got up early, went for a walk on the beach with my wife.  Later, my father-in-law and I went to play golf.  Who knew at this point, I’m going to play golf, it’s a great vacation that six hours later I’m in the hospital.”

SLIDESHOW: Images From Report (Editor’s Note: Some Images May Be Disturbing)

“I went to an area where the sea turtles, or where I was told, the sea turtles were.  They’re very beautiful and majestic animals to watch.  Little did I know, sharks eat turtles, so I was swimming in the dining room.”

“Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the jaws of the shark coming right at me.  In that same instant I felt it lifting me out of the water — then the body of the shark — I was almost laying across it.  My upper body was out of the water and the body and the dorsal fin were right here (points).  I punched it a few times and then it was gone.”

“After the shark was gone and I tried to swim, I couldn’t kick my leg, so it was at that point I knew that I’d been bitten, because I didn’t even feel it initially.”

“It seemed like forever, (I) wasn’t making any progress getting in, and it was getting pretty troubling and scary.  Everything I’ve ever been told about sharks is that they don’t give up.  They come back, so the whole time I’m swimming I’m waiting for it to bite me again.”

I’ll never forget, I brought my head up out of the water and to yell for help again, and heard someone off from a different direction say, ‘I’m here,’ and he was just 10-12 feet away so we turned and started swimming toward each other.”

“The shark that attacked me, they estimate to be about 10 feet.  Even with the bite on my kneecap, it didn’t really do any damage to the patella, to the internal part of the knee.  I was really very fortunate.”

“My surgeon, Dr. Murray, put it all back together.  This was the first time I had gotten out of bed after surgery.  I’ve never been so sick in my entire life.”

“(My) biggest fear with my son was not being able to play basketball with him. Doc thinks I’ll be able to do that.  You know, (I’m) going through it, I was always determined.  I mean, this is not going to get in the way of anything. I’m going to play golf, I’m going to play basketball, and I’m going to do what I want to do.”

“I’m training for a 10K run at the end of June.  I run two or three times a week and I’m just amazed that I can, I can actually run!”

“I have four children.  I think as a family we really appreciate more the little things we have together now.  I went to breakfast with my 9-year-old this morning to school.  I wouldn’t have been here for that, teaching my older daughter how to drive, well, trying to teach her how to drive, you know, I could have missed all of that.”

“It’s been a change in perspective, that life is short, and precious.”

Editor’s Note:  The shark that attacked Miller was never found.  Since the incident, he has continued to snorkel on other family vacations.

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3 ways local sharks attack

April 19, 7:23 PM 

If your surfboard looks like a pinniped, could it result in a “hit and run?” Read on for the answer.

It is scary that some surfers fall victim to unprovoked shark attacks each year. There are three main ways that sharks attack. In all cases, it is rare to ever see it coming.

How sharks attack:

1)“Hit and Run” attacks
While we disdain this behavior in licensed drivers, it is the least vile attack of all shark attacks. This form of attack is the most common form to surfers, but luckily not the deadliest. It involves a single bite or slash wound in which sharks do not return. Often, sharks are testing to see if you are food. Their minds work like a computer, and they are trying to determine if you are what they are looking for. They are placing you in the search engine. If you are surrounded by their food source, when they lunge, it is common for them to “taste” you and miss their target. But, a shark’s version of a lick packs a mean punch. With that kind of force, you may not be lunch, but you will be “left-over.” Many surfers have gotten a chunk of their foot lacerated, or a missing arm or leg. But, luckily they are alive. Everyone knows of Bethany Hamilton and how she still surfs today after her horrible accident. Hopefully, these accidents will be avoided in the future as surfers become more aware of their surroundings. Remember, when in the midst of a school of fish take action to prevent such mayhem by pulling in your appendages.
 

2)“Sneak” attacks
Much like a stealthy navy seal, you would not see this shark attack coming. Sneak attacks are the most fatal shark attacks. If a great white noticed your board from below and came charging from the depths, you would no longer be a surfer, you would be his. There is no way to foresee these kinds of attacks. The best way to prepare for this is your desire to stay alive. But after repeated bites, this form attack often proves itself fatal.

3)”Bump and Run” attacks
These attacks can be easily envisioned because of the movie, Jaws. This may involve one or multiple sharks. It occurs when the shark begins to circle you, moving vastly closer in proximity. The shark then proceeds to bump you from whatever vessel is harboring you. These attacks frequent plane crashes, and like sneak attacks, grueling at best.

Local Note: We have tiger sharks, blacktips, and bull sharks frequenting our waters. Tigers and bulls, as if their names were not a fierce enough description, are prone to both sneak attacks and bump and runs. Blacktips are more likely to hit and run.

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Shark incidents on the rise in Florida

Submitted by SHNS on Fri, 04/24/2009 – 09:58. 

A combination of more people going to local beaches and the natural migrating pattern of sharks has led to recent shark bite incidents in Florida, researchers said.

Sharks are starting to move north as water temperatures rise, with some sharks expected to reach southern New England by the end of the summer, said George Burgess, director of Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida, in an e-mail.

Since last Friday, there have been several shark bite incidents, one each in St. Lucie and Palm Beach counties and one involving an Okeechobee County man at New Smyrna Beach.

“More people equal more chances to meet up with a shark, pure odds,” Burgess wrote.

Sharks normally spotted in the water are black tip, spinner, blacknose and sharpnose sharks. Occasionally spotted are tiger, bull, lemon and hammerhead sharks, Burgess said.

Also, bull sharks are chasing tarpons that are migrating from the Bahamas to Florida’s coast, said Neil Hammerschlag, director of the South Florida Student Shark Program at the University of Miami.

“Sharks, they’re out for an easy meal,” he said.

Lifeguards along Florida’s Treasure Coast said they are monitoring the waters and informing beach-goers of any dangers.

“Sharks aren’t looking to feed on people, but they are looking for bait fish,” Martin County lifeguard Capt. Ray Szefinski said.

Vero Beach lifeguard Lt. Shanna Beard said she sometimes has to remind swimmers not to play in a pool of baitfish or take pictures in the water because the vibrations and light flashes could attract sharks.

“A lot of people see it as being fun and don’t realize the danger,” she said.

However, Hammerschlag said beach-goers should not panic and think, “it’s not safe to go into the water.”

“More people die from bee stings and tripping over sand castles and hitting their heads than from shark attacks,” he said.

REDUCING RISK OF SHARK ATTACKS:

- Always stay in groups; sharks are more likely to attack a lone person.

- Do not wander too far from shore – this isolates an individual and additionally places one far away from assistance.

- Avoid being in the water during dawn or dusk hours when sharks are most active and have a competitive sensory advantage.

- Do not enter the water if bleeding or if menstruating – a shark’s olfactory ability is acute and sharks are attracted to blood.

- Do not wear shiny jewelry because the reflected light resembles the sheen of fish scales.

- Sightings of porpoises do not indicate the absence of sharks – both often eat the same food items.

- Use extra caution when waters are murky and avoid uneven tanning and bright-colored clothing – sharks see contrast particularly well.

- Refrain from excess splashing, and do not allow pets in the water because of their erratic movements.

- Exercise caution when in the area between sandbars or near steep drop-offs – these are favorite hangouts for sharks.

Information provided by the International Shark Attack File Web site, University of Florida Museum of Natural History, www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/ISAF/ISAF.htm