Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 15:12:38 -0400 From: Michael Lawrence Subject: Shark attacks

Fellow shark lovers.
I wrote a few days ago concerning a fatal shark attack in Western Australia. The radio news reported yesterday that the abalone diver had been in the water for only about a minute when he was taken (still on the surface - no warning). Apparently there were calving whales nearby and the shark had been attacted by the large amount of blood and afterbirth in the water.
While there is some speculation to the species of shark, most observers agreed that there was seem little doubt that it was our friend C. charcharis (GW).

While on this subject I might add some of the information about some previous GW attacks in Australian waters on divers. The first was a diver taken at Dangerous reef, South Australia in 1981 or 1983 (the book is elsewhere at the moment.) The visibility was 1.5 - 2m. Three divers were diving holding hands. The two outside divers reported hearing a sound like a truck (later assumed to be the water rushing through the gills as the shark opened its jaws). The middle diver was taken, and not a trace was found of the diver, or the shark.

About 2 years ago now (probably almost to the day) there were 2 attacks in a week that stirred up a fair amount of shark phobia in Australia (I'll admit that I also cancelled the planned diving for that weekend...)

The first of these was a mother who was taken as she signalled OK after doing a backward roll off the boat. This was at King Island in Tasmania. They had been watching a pod of Orcas on the far side of the island then moved around to the seal colony. There were no seals in the water, but this diver decided to chance it. She was taken with her family watching.

The second that week was at Byron Bay on the NSW far North Coast. The attack was at Julian Rocks a popular Grey Nurse (Sand tiger) dive site. A husband apparently pushed his wife out of the way of a GW that attacked them as they were doing their required safety stop. The story that was told in the local dive shops was that the group of 6 divers had been circled by this GW for the previous 20 min of the dive. A local fisherman hooked this shark just minutes later, but lost it. It was reported as being 6 - 6.5 metres long. The next day there were reports from a light aircraft of seeing a large shark on the surface having difficulty with bouyancy and looking very sick. This was 150km south of Julian Rocks.

This brings me to a question. What happens when a GW ingests a scuba tank? Can it regurgitate it? (I saw a greeting card recently that has two sharks following a diver with one shark saying to the other "Just make sure you dont eat that hard bit on its back - it makes you fart")
Anyway, is it taught in other parts of the world as it was in my course to, a) not get in the water at a seal colony if the seals were not in the water, and, b) that if a GW turns up on your dive you should terminate the dive? As far as I am concerned in the cases at Dangerous reef, and King Island I would not have been diving. (Ask yourself the question why it is called Dangerous Reef?) It would have been fairly unexpected to see a GW at Julian Rocks, but if you did, why would you stay in the water? (Admittedly the odds were only 1 in 6 assuming the shark was in a feeding mood.)

It just seems to me that most of the fatal shark attacks that I get to hear about, the victims were placing themselves at unnecessary risk with what they were doing. Do others agree here or am I just too sceptical?

Michael

March 4, 1985 was when Shirley Ann Durdin, a 33-year-old with four children, lost her life to a GW in Peake Bay, Australia. She had been snorkeling in water about 7 feet deep - equivalent to the deep end of a residential swimming pool - when she was fatally attacked by a GW estimated by witnesses to be 20 feet long. The first hit was a gory strike, the fish biting her in half. By the time Mrs. Durdin's would-be rescuers could get to the site of the attack, all that could be seen was the victim's headless torso. After a moment, the GW returned and took it as well. It was the first fatal GW attack in South Australian waters in over 10 years and the first time ever that an Australian victim was known to be eaten.

To be eaten - think about it for more than a moment and you're likely to push the thought from your rational mind and back into the depths of your subconscious, a dark pit that contains all of the other fears of death that are too awful to comprehend - the fear of falling, the fear of burning, the fear of being buried alive . . .

Unfortunately, it is this pit where most first thoughts and impressions of the GW reside. It is only with a bit of academic smoke and mirrors that scientists and researchers can cover up what remains the primary fascination that humans have with the GW, the fact that it is one of a handful of animals alive today that can actually eat one of us alive - and sometimes does.

(or the 'Jersey Person-Eater' for those more politically correct than I)

Although 'Jaws' is completely fictional, its account of what might happen if a big GW decided to camp offshore of a beach resort community faintly echoes the occurrences of a 12-day period in New Jersey during July of 1916. During this short span, five men were attacked by sharks with four of them being fatal. The first, a young man named Charles Vansant, was about 50 feet from shore when he was bitten on his left thigh. He died of massive blood loss less than two hours later.

Five days later, about 45 miles north of the first attack, Charles Bruder was hit by a shark that took both his feet. Although a lifeboat was launched at the moment he began to scream, he was about 400 feet from shore - too far to help. He perished within minutes of his arrival at shore.

Six days passed before the next incident. In what would be the worst of the Jersey attacks, a young boy named Lester Stillwell was pulled under while swimming with friends in Matawan Creek, some 30 miles north of the second attack. Several men dived into the creek to attempt a rescue only to have one of them, the ironically-named Stanley Fisher, bitten on his right thigh. A large amount of flesh was taken in the attack and although Fisher made it to the operating table, the damage was too great and he, too, fell victim to a shark.

The final victim was on his way to shore as word spread of the Stillwater-Fisher attacks but was too late. He was lucky, receiving only a laceration that managed to miss any major arteries.

The Jersey attacks are not noteworthy for being GW attacks. Although it is likely that a GW or a close relative like the Mako shark was responsible for the first two attacks, no GW has ever demonstrated a propensity towards venturing into a freshwater (as opposed to seawater) area. The only shark noteworthy of this behavior is the bull shark and this was the likely suspect of the final three attacks. However, the media frenzy surrounding the attacks and the fears that they spread are indicative of the public's continuing fascination with shark attacks.

Traveling west to the coast of California, we find that one particular stretch of coastline has acquired the ominous sobriquet of 'the Red Triangle'. This triangle stretches some 100 miles or so from Bodega Bay, north of San Francisco, to Ano Nuevo Island near Santa Cruz with the corner of the triangle being the famous Farallon Islands. Since scientists began accurately tracking shark attacks and the species responsible for them some fifty or so years ago, the Red Triangle has been the world's leading site of GW attacks on humans, a somewhat gruesome distinction.

A highly publicized attack took place near the Red Triangle during the winter of 1981. A week before Christmas, Lewis Boren and his friends were surfing at Spanish Bay, just south of Monterey. After lunch, Boren returned to the water alone where he was attacked while on his 5-foot fiberglass surfboard. His board was found the next morning with a large piece missing in the classic shape of a bite mark. The piece was found later and Boren's body was found floating about a half-mile north of the attack site with a similar bite mark. It seems he was floating out to catch the larger waves offshore, his arms outstretched in front of him, when a large GW attacked, cleanly biting through both him and his board. From the bite radius on the corpse and the board, the size of the attacking GW has been estimated at 18-20 feet.

In addition to the attack on Mrs. Durdin, Australia has had its fair share of GW attacks. The most documented GW attack occurred in 1963 when Rodney Fox was attacked while competing in a spear fishing contest. He attempted to poke the eye of his attacker but only managed to stick his hand into the shark's mouth, slicing his arm open to the bone. The shark let go but attacked again with Fox grabbing its snout to avoid being bitten again. Weakened by loss of blood and running out of air, Fox let go and struggled to the surface. The shark attacked again but only grabbed the fish line clipped to his belt, pulling Fox down with it. The shark's teeth then severed the line and Fox finally made it into a waiting boat. Rushed to the hospital, Fox underwent emergency surgery, an operation that required 462 stitches to put him back together.

When man meets shark, the results are not often pretty.

Fox is hardly the only diver attacked in Australian waters. Abalone diving is a profitable, if highly dangerous, activity that often puts the divers in contact with the GW, sometimes with fatal results.

The final stop on our world tour is South Africa where the GW is joined by the bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) as an attacker. Both sharks are kept at bay by the large network of steel nets that protect the beaches of South Africa, nets that drown hundreds of sharks each year along with countless other marine life. These nets were put in place after a series of attacks in the late 50's threatened to end tourism in Durban. These attacks have since been attributed mainly to C. leucas but the GW is a constant presence.