Ever since Jaws, great whites have had a reputation as killing machines that has never seemed much point questioning.

However, that could all be about to change – after a study into the fearsome predators’ dining habits.

Scientists towed a 36ft Brydes whale carcass into a well-known hunting ground for the animals in an exercise aimed at documenting how they tackled the huge free lunch.

And these amazing pictures show how up to 30 of them stripped a single whale carcass – and gave an ‘extraordinary’ insight into how the much-feared predators behave.

But while many would have expected a feeding frenzy and potentially lethal fights between the razor-teethed gians, the behaviour observed was quite different.

The sharks appeared to select choice cuts of the dead whale and did not appear to be aggressive towards each other.

Free lunch: The 30 great white sharks were provided with a whale carcass so scientists could study their eating habits

Tasty findings: Alison Kock was the principal scientist at Save Our Seas Shark Centre and Shark Spotting Programme, at Cape Town in South Africa and was surprised by the sharks

Alison Kock, 33, the principal scientist at Save Our Seas Shark Centre and Shark Spotting Programme, at Cape Town South Africa, said: ‘Contrary to their reputation as mindless killers, the level of selectivity for which parts of the dead whale they ate was extraordinary.

‘They targeted the energy-rich blubber, often making repeated “test bites” where no flesh was removed, and removing flesh only once they had determined it was what they wanted. If they got a mouthful of muscle, they often spat it out.

‘They were very picky.’

It’s thought the huge whale was killed after being struck by a boat and was found floating towards Miller’s Point near Cape Town, South Africa, where the clean up operation for the local authorities would have been difficult as their huge bodies are harder to remove on land.

It was also feared the body – giving off oils that attract predators like sharks – may have drawn in great whites to an area frequented by swimmers.

Kock added: ‘Permission was granted by the authorities to have the dead whale towed to nearby Seal Island where the carcass was less of an issue and the sharks could help solve the clean-up problem.

‘In addition it provided an unparalleled opportunity to document white shark behaviour and record the number of sharks in the area.

‘Whale carcasses are believed to be a very important source of food for white sharks with some scientific evidence suggesting they follow whale migrations possibly to, opportunistically feed on dead or sick whales.’

Jaws: Alison Koch said: ‘Contrary to their reputation as mindless killers, the level of selectivity for which parts of the dead whale they ate was extraordinary’

Blubber: During the nine-day experiment Kock and her team made some shocking discoveries, including the fact that the sharks seemed to have a huge preference for soft blubber over tough muscle

During the nine-day experiment, which ended on Saturday, Kock and her team made some shocking discoveries, including the fact that the sharks seemed to have a huge preference for soft blubber over tough muscle.

‘In the case of the whale carcass the sharks knew exactly what they wanted,’ said Kock.

‘It provides evidence that when they bite into a surfboard, or kayak or person wearing a wetsuit they can immediately determine it’s not something they want to eat.

‘It’s very common in attacks on humans for white sharks to take a single bite and leave it at that. Our study provides more evidence that they are simply tasting and looking for meat that is nutritious. It shows that they are not just swimming around mindlessly eating everything they come across, as they are sometimes portrayed.’

She added: ‘I was surprised at the total number of white sharks that fed on the dead whale over the nine days we documented the event. We recorded over 30 different sharks in total. At one stage we had up to four white sharks feeding simultaneously on the carcass.

‘The first two days were the busiest with the most sharks, and the activity slowly decreased as the sharks had their fill. The last two days we recorded no sharks feeding on the carcass.

‘Many of the sharks I recognised as individuals hunting seals around the island from this shark season, as well as previous years. We used their unique dorsal fins to identify them, but there were also new sharks that I had never seen before.

‘The sharks showed very little aggression towards one another in the presence of such a large food source, often feeding side by side.

‘Some of the sharks we observed were gorging on the blubber and you could actually see their bellies getting fuller.

“Some would arrive quite skinny and by the end of their session they looked pregnant with their bellies bulging.’

During the study, the sharks reduced the carcass down to less than seven feet (two metres) of bone and muscle, having removed all the blubber.

Shark enthusiast Kock, added: ‘This is the ultimate example of the very important role sharks play in the ecosystem. That of recycling life, and of keeping our oceans healthy by removing dead and decaying animals like dead whales.’

via Shark attack: Incredible pictures of 30 great whites stripping a whale carcass provide ‘extraordinary’ insight into eating habits | Mail Online.

BETHUNE BEACH — As Judy Fischman swam in the Atlantic Ocean here Thursday, she suddenly found herself lifted above the water on the back of a large dark animal.

“My first thought was ‘I hope this is a manatee,’ ” Fischman said Friday. “Then I saw the black tail.”

“Shark,” she thought. “Then I saw other sharks and I thought, ‘My God, how am I going to escape a whole group of sharks?’ ”

From her vantage point on the street overlooking the scene, Martha Williams wondered the same thing.

Williams and her husband Ron had stepped out of their car to look out at the ocean. They first noticed a woman swimming alone, a couple hundred feet off shore. It was about 7:15 p.m. Then, as they watched, she said sharks appeared in the water, swimming parallel to the shore between the beach and the lone swimmer.

“I said to Ron, ‘Oh my God, I hope they totally ignore her, just don’t even see her.’ Then all of a sudden they all veer off and they’re all heading to her,” Williams said Friday. “I about screamed and said, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, they’re heading right to her, right to her.’ ”

As they watched, the ocean surface around Fischman erupted in churning water and the swimmer was suddenly lifted above the surface of the wave, arms and legs flailing, she said. “It was just so frightening.”

Back in the water, Fischman said she realized she “was on the back of a huge shark. There was another shark next to me.”

“I screamed,” she said, “but I don’t remember what I screamed.”

Fischman said she remembered advice she’d seen on television for fighting off sharks — giving them “a good punch and let them know you could hurt them.” She started punching the animal. As it seemed to roll on its side, she said it seemed to sort of wrap its tail around her.

“Then a wave came. All of a sudden they were gone,” she said. “They probably realized I’m not food and let go.”

“Maybe they thought I was a seal,” she said. “I had on a black bathing suit.”

Ron Williams ran down to the beach expecting to find the swimmer in need of medical attention, but instead she walked back to shore.

“It was really something,” Martha Williams said.

Fischman told her story to a Beach Patrol officer Thursday night, and on Friday afternoon, Fischman and Martha Williams spoke with George Burgess, director of the shark attack file at the University of Florida. Burgess isn’t yet sure what kind of animal surfaced under Fischman. He said it could have been a shark, or it could have been some kind of dolphin or small whale.

Williams and Fischman agreed to fill out witness statements for Burgess and he’ll try to figure out whether it was a shark encounter.

“It was possible it was a shark attack,” he said. “It’s also possible it was an encounter with a marine mammal.”

Sharks were spotted elsewhere in Volusia and Brevard counties on Thursday.Volusia’s Fischman swims regularly for exercise and said she often sees sharks. She likes to swim far enough out to get past the breakers, in water not quite 6 feet deep.

Fischman, a Bethune Beach resident since 2002, figured maybe a guardian angel was watching out for her. She emerged from the encounter with nothing but scrapes on her legs. And, she headed right back into the water on Friday afternoon.

She’s also had some close encounters with manatees during the past couple of years. “It’s very startling,” she said. “You can get lifted out of the water.”

via Woman: Shark took me for a ride – News.

NAPLES — Beside Alligator Alley in Golden Gate, there is a canal that locals have named “the Crystal.”

Tracy Cusick, 39, and Chris Kight, 49, parked their van and set their white plastic chairs underneath a shade tree beside the Crystal, their favorite swimming hole, to enjoy some “tranquility.”

Cars repeatedly swoosh by on the interstate, but the trees act as a buffer between the couple and civilization.

“Normally when they drive past they, blow their horn at us,” Kight said.

In some places of the canal, the clear water makes it easy to see the bottom. Fish dash by and the surface of the water sometimes ripples as they go. In other parts, which Kight thinks can be as deep as 40 feet, the water is mysterious and dark.

Cusick and Kight have visited the Crystal to swim, fish and meet with friends for about 20 years, but they are worried they may have to fight to keep the swimming hole open after a gruesome alligator attack on Sunday left a young man without a hand.

Tim Delano, 18, was attacked by a 10-foot alligator while swimming in the canal with friends Sunday evening. The gator clamped its mouth around Delano’s left hand and then severed it when the teen got away.

Friends drove Delano a couple of miles to get help. Delano was airlifted to Lee Memorial Hospital, where he is recovering. A tracker, sent by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, later trapped and killed the gator.

Delano wants people to stop swimming at the Crystal. “I hope they shut it down, so no accidents like this will happen again,” he said.

Kight said what happened to Delano was a first.

“It was a freak accident,” Kight said.

Although Cusick and Kight were the only mid-afternoon swimmers at the Crystal Monday, Kight said there were about 75 people there Sunday.

People were listening to music, barbecuing and swimming in the canal, according to the couple.

“It’s just a hangout,” Kight said.

Parents bring their children to swim and fish.

“The kids are never unattended,” Cusick said.

The day of the accident, Kight and Cusick left before it got dark, around 7 p.m., because they won’t swim in the Crystal past sunset.

“A gator feeds at night like a shark does,” Kight said.

Unlike Delano, they have seen gators in the waters before. “Any canal you go in there’s a chance,” Kight said.

Kight learned what happened to Delano from a television news report later that night. He knew it was the Crystal right away.

“I recognized a tree,” Kight said.

There’s still a dried pool of blood where Delano stood after he got out of the water. Kight pointed it out on the dirt road. He said they are glad Delano survived, but they’re worried their favorite swimming hole won’t.

“It would really bother me if they shut it down. There aren’t places to swim,” Cusick said.

She thinks it might be a good idea to post signs warning people about the potential dangers or to let them know what to do to stay safe.

“Everyone knows anyway, but to refresh their memories,” Cusick said.

But if there is a push to ban people from swimming in the Crystal, Kight said he’d start a petition to fight it.

“There will be a lot of people to sign it,” he said. “It’s the last swimming hole we have in Naples.”

via PHOTOS: Alligator attack doesn’t deter locals from swimming in the Crystal » Naples Daily News.

READINGTON TWP. — In July 1960, a sand tiger shark attacked then 24-year-old John Brodeur and ripped through his right thigh as he stood in the ocean at the Sea Girt beach.

50 years later, the Readington Township resident is grateful he lived through it to experience 40 years of marriage with his wife Celine, and life with his four children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

“I’m very happy with my life. It was just an incident along the way,” said Brodeur, a retired accountant, who has been featured in books about sharks and was once a guest on the “O’Reilly Factor.”

Brodeur was told the shark had been a 12- to 17-foot sand tiger shark, judging from the teeth marks in his leg, At the time of the attack, he was standing farther out than other bathers, his feet firmly planted in the sand.

“I ride waves and I was getting ready to ride a wave in,” Brodeur said. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I saw this big black thing coming toward me — I thought it was a telephone pole,” he said. The shark was long and black, and there had been a bad storm earlier that week.

When the shark bit him, Brodeur slapped the top of the shark’s head with his hand, and “eventually it let go,” he said.

“The lifeguard pulled me out of the water and then dropped me in the sand,” Brodeur continued. “My right thigh was all torn open.”

Celine Brodeur, who was not present at the time but knows the story well, said the young lifeguard panicked. “It’s not every day you get a shark attack,” she said.

A Marine veteran named Norman Porter, from the Bronx, took his belt off and used it to apply a tourniquet to Brodeur’s leg to slow the bleeding until he could be taken to the hospital. Because his nerves were severed and he was in shock, Brodeur does not recall feeling much pain.

He still thinks highly of Porter. “He saved my life. I was a lucky man.”

Celine noted that Porter has passed away, “but he’s been my husband’s hero.”

Brodeur’s leg had to be amputated, and he spent three months recovering in the hospital. Now with a prosthetic leg, he can’t run, but he can walk, and he enjoys playing tennis.

“I still go to the beach,” he said. In fact, the Brodeurs and their children will be taking a family vacation in Cape May this summer.

“He never, ever let one thing stand in his way,” his wife said. “It was never a handicap to him.”

In spite of the attack, John said he has always loved swimming in the ocean. But he warns other swimmers to be careful, especially because it is not always true that sharks will only attack someone who is already bleeding.

“Make sure that there are lifeguards, and other people in the water,” Brodeur warned.

via Shark attack!!! 50 years later, Readington man tells of having his leg mauled | NJ.com.

Standing next to his young daughter in waist-deep water off Fripp Island on Friday afternoon, Craig Morris felt something softly nudge his leg.

Seconds later, something pulled 6-year-old Ella under the water.

That “something” was a shark, he said.

The 37-year-old father of three quickly pulled the child to the surface.

That’s when he saw the blood and the 9-inch gash on the little girl’s leg, said Heidi Morris, Craig’s wife and Ella’s mother.

“He threw the boogie board they had been using (away) and squeezed her leg together,” said Heidi Morris of the 1 p.m. incident near the Fripp Island Beach Club. “Then he carried her up the beach and booked it to the fire house. There was lots of blood. You could see her bone.”

A Beaufort County paramedic and Fripp Island Fire officers treated Ella until an ambulance arrived and took her to Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

It took 22 stitches to close the bite. Ella was released later that day, Heidi Morrris said.

The family, including sons Jackson, 8, and Parker, 9, of Marietta, Ga., were enjoying the final day of a week-long vacation when the incident occurred, she said. It was their first time vacationing on Fripp.

“We just loved it,” she said. “Earlier in the day, I had even posted pictures and a comment on my Facebook page that we were so happy with our experience. Later that day, I had to tell people about the shark.”

A RARE OCCURRENCE

Emergency room doctors told the family the shark was probably small, between four and five feet long, Heidi Morris said.

Mel Bell, director of the Office of Fisheries Management for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, agreed.

Ella’s wound looked like four smaller bites in a row, probably from a small shark. Typically, a swimmer would see the dorsal fin of a larger animal before it struck, Bell said.

“What you have with sharks is a test bite, to see what it is,” he said. “Then they usually take off, because you’re not a desired food item.”

DNR Sgt. Michael Paul Thomas said Tuesday there is no way to confirm whether the youngster’s wound was inflicted by a shark.

Because shark attacks are so rare, there is no protocol for reporting bites.

In South Carolina, the most recent shark attack that resulted in death was in 1883, Bell said.

“We’re still not sure what kind of shark it was,” he said.

In July 2006, an Ohio man said he was bitten by a shark at Hilton Head Island’s Singleton Beach. The wound required about a dozen stitches on his leg above his ankle. Authorities never confirmed the attack as the work of a shark, but the man said the teeth marks and puncture wounds were evidence enough for him.

In June of that year, a Missouri girl was bitten while playing in about two feet of water near the Breakers resort area of Coligny Beach.

Earlier in the month, a 14-year-old girl was bitten while swimming off Pawleys Island while a 21-year-old woman suffered a foot injury during a shark encounter off Kiawah Island.

Still, shark bites are relatively rare occurrences.

According to statistics compiled by the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, people are 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning.

Thomas said tracking the area shark population is not an exact science, but called the number robust.

“We always have a fairly large number of sharks in our waters,” Thomas said.

He attributed that to deep waters, healthy estuaries and plenty of fish to eat.

“Port Royal and St. Helena sounds are two deep areas for them to come into and spawn, and we have an abundance of fish,” Thomas said.

‘I’M NOT SCARED’

While the incident left her parents shaken, Ella was the picture of courage and composure.

Her mother was amazed at the child’s attitude in the emergency room.

“She was fine, acted like there was absolutely nothing wrong,” Heidi Morris said.

Since the encounter, the six-year-old has continued to be upbeat and chatty, her mother said.

“Yesterday (Monday) all day, she wore a shark T-shirt,” she said.

Her parents said they were happy there was no severe nerve or muscle damage. A doctor said Monday the youngster’s wound was healing well and she should be up and walking in a day or two, her mother said.

Minutes before the attack, Ella had been in the water alone, her mother said.

“We were lucky, because her dad came up and put his arms around her right before it happened,” she said. “I think she felt safe because her daddy was right there.”

“I’m not scared,” Ella told her mother after the attack.

She said something else, too.

“I’ll go back in the water.”

via Ga. girl ‘upbeat’ after being bitten by shark off Fripp Island | islandpacket.com.

Standing next to his young daughter in waist-deep water off Fripp Island on Friday afternoon, Craig Morris felt something softly nudge his leg.

Seconds later, something pulled 6-year-old Ella under the water.

That “something” was a shark, he said.

The 37-year-old father of three quickly pulled the child to the surface.

That’s when he saw the blood and the 9-inch gash on the little girl’s leg, said Heidi Morris, Craig’s wife and Ella’s mother.

“He threw the boogie board they had been using (away) and squeezed her leg together,” said Heidi Morris of the 1 p.m. incident near the Fripp Island Beach Club. “Then he carried her up the beach and booked it to the fire house. There was lots of blood. You could see her bone.”

A Beaufort County paramedic and Fripp Island Fire officers treated Ella until an ambulance arrived and took her to Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

It took 22 stitches to close the bite. Ella was released later that day, Heidi Morrris said.

The family, including sons Jackson, 8, and Parker, 9, of Marietta, Ga., were enjoying the final day of a week-long vacation when the incident occurred, she said. It was their first time vacationing on Fripp.

“We just loved it,” she said. “Earlier in the day, I had even posted pictures and a comment on my Facebook page that we were so happy with our experience. Later that day, I had to tell people about the shark.”

A RARE OCCURRENCE

Emergency room doctors told the family the shark was probably small, between four and five feet long, Heidi Morris said.

Mel Bell, director of the Office of Fisheries Management for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, agreed.

Ella’s wound looked like four smaller bites in a row, probably from a small shark. Typically, a swimmer would see the dorsal fin of a larger animal before it struck, Bell said.

“What you have with sharks is a test bite, to see what it is,” he said. “Then they usually take off, because you’re not a desired food item.”

DNR Sgt. Michael Paul Thomas said Tuesday there is no way to confirm whether the youngster’s wound was inflicted by a shark.

Because shark attacks are so rare, there is no protocol for reporting bites.

In South Carolina, the most recent shark attack that resulted in death was in 1883, Bell said.

“We’re still not sure what kind of shark it was,” he said.

In July 2006, an Ohio man said he was bitten by a shark at Hilton Head Island’s Singleton Beach. The wound required about a dozen stitches on his leg above his ankle. Authorities never confirmed the attack as the work of a shark, but the man said the teeth marks and puncture wounds were evidence enough for him.

In June of that year, a Missouri girl was bitten while playing in about two feet of water near the Breakers resort area of Coligny Beach.

Earlier in the month, a 14-year-old girl was bitten while swimming off Pawleys Island while a 21-year-old woman suffered a foot injury during a shark encounter off Kiawah Island.

Still, shark bites are relatively rare occurrences.

According to statistics compiled by the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, people are 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning.

Thomas said tracking the area shark population is not an exact science, but called the number robust.

“We always have a fairly large number of sharks in our waters,” Thomas said.

He attributed that to deep waters, healthy estuaries and plenty of fish to eat.

“Port Royal and St. Helena sounds are two deep areas for them to come into and spawn, and we have an abundance of fish,” Thomas said.

‘I’M NOT SCARED’

While the incident left her parents shaken, Ella was the picture of courage and composure.

Her mother was amazed at the child’s attitude in the emergency room.

“She was fine, acted like there was absolutely nothing wrong,” Heidi Morris said.

Since the encounter, the six-year-old has continued to be upbeat and chatty, her mother said.

“Yesterday (Monday) all day, she wore a shark T-shirt,” she said.

Her parents said they were happy there was no severe nerve or muscle damage. A doctor said Monday the youngster’s wound was healing well and she should be up and walking in a day or two, her mother said.

Minutes before the attack, Ella had been in the water alone, her mother said.

“We were lucky, because her dad came up and put his arms around her right before it happened,” she said. “I think she felt safe because her daddy was right there.”

“I’m not scared,” Ella told her mother after the attack.

She said something else, too.

“I’ll go back in the water.”

via Ga. girl ‘upbeat’ after being bitten by shark off Fripp Island | islandpacket.com.

JACKSONVILLE BEACH – A woman bitten on the leg in the ocean near 16th Avenue South has prompted the annual summer vigilance for potential shark activity.

The 18-year-old woman was bitten about 2 p.m. Thursday in waist-deep water a few feet from shore, said Jacksonville Beach Ocean Rescue Capt. Thomas Wright. She was treated at Baptist Medical Center-Beaches for the minor bite wound, which was described as an outline of a small mouth with teeth.

Wright said the woman was bitten by something, but officials aren't sure it was a shark. Barracudas, bluefish and stingrays can bite or sting, he said.

“Unless it's a missing limb or something, I wouldn't necessarily call it a shark attack,” said Wright. “It's likely there is a lot of life in the water right now. The water's warming up.”

He said sharks, such as black tips and spinners, are migrating to their nursing grounds as far north as North Carolina.

Lifeguards along Jacksonville's Beaches haven't spotted large numbers of sharks recently, he said.

The incident had little impact on beachgoers. Many people were still in the water near the site after it happened Thursday. Even more people were at the beach Friday, since that was the last day of classes for many schools.

Jacksonville Beach Mayor Fland Sharp said he doesn't want to downplay any attack. But beachgoers have acclimated to the ocean's realities.

“We've had a shark attack what seems like every two or three years,” Sharp said. “There were a couple things that looked like they were shark bites and a couple things looked like it was something else.”

Sharp, a former lifeguard, said people should keep shark threats in perspective.

“If I was coming down here and felt a little uncomfortable, just walk up to a lifeguard on a chair” and ask if there are any reported shark sightings, he said. “I think the odds are much greater of being struck by lightning.”

Sharp said there are some simple rules to follow.

“In the summertime, there are pods of bait fish that come close to shore,” he said. “You definitely don't want to go swimming around those because there are sharks and other kinds of fish that are feeding around those. There are sharks here and you just have to use some common sense about it.”

Wright said it has been about four years since a shark attack in the area and that was at the Jacksonville Beach Pier off Fourth Avenue North. The woman's injuries were minor then, too. He advised swimmers to remember the ocean is the shark's habitat.

“Just know that is their home and they are out there all the time,” said Wright. “Just because you don't see fins swimming by like the movie “Jaws” doesn't mean they're not there. If you're concerned about being bit or anything, you probably shouldn't go out there.”

via Attack on woman in Jacksonville Beach waters may have been shark, raises concern | jacksonville.com.

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.

Eighteen-year old Hannah Mayo was on her boogie board just off the coast of a Jacksonville beach when a shark floated up beside her and chomped down on both her leg and foot, reported the Gwinett Daily Post.

Her boyfriend, Rick Hughes, immediately ran to her aid and pulled her to shore, calling for lifeguards. The bite measured 12 inches in radius and required 29 stitches in all.

According to the news source, Mayo's mother, Kitty Mayo-Foster, said that hospital staff told her that Mayo was lucky to not have lost her foot, because of the way it was positioned on the boogie board.

Only several hours later, Mayo was already laughing about surviving the shark attack and telling people that she was “done with the ocean,” due to this encounter and another unpleasant experience with a Portuguese man-of-war when she was nine.

University of Florida findings claim that 100 people have been subject to a shark attack in the U.S from 1916 to 2008, with 12 of the attacks resulting in death. Experts from the university advise swimmers to avoid night swimming, swimming away from the shore, or swimming alone to reduce the risk of an attack.

Someone who is bleeding shouldn't swim in shark-populated areas at all and the university researchers say that jewelry or too much splashing can also attract predators.

via Hannah Mayo survives shark attack while boogie-boarding | News and Articles | TheSurvivorsClub.org.

Link

IMAGES: Swimmer Survives Gator Attack
VIDEO: Victim | Gator Captured

Doug McCard, 35, said he was out for an early-morning swim on Sunday to train for a triathlon when the attack occurred.

He described his ordeal at Lake Mary Jane in Moss Park that sent him to the emergency room in detail.

“I knew I was in really shallow water, maybe waist deep, so I tried to spin myself and stand up and started swinging. Got a pretty good elbow to his head and he released me,” McCard said.

McCard said he’s been swimming in Lake Mary Jane since he’s been a boy, so the attack came as a shock.

Park personnel will continue to monitor the area for alligators.