Pete Thomas Outdoors

Great white shark attack, increased sightings keep San Onofre surfers on edge

By Pete Thomas

Shark experts have often said that you’re far more likely to be injured or killed while driving to the beach than by falling victim to a shark attack.

That might be true, but you’d be hard-pressed to convince surfers and swimmers along a popular stretch of Southern California coastline, where a woman was seriously injured during a shark attack last Saturday.

In the days since Leeanne Ericson was bitten in the upper thigh area while swimming at San Onofre State Beach in North San Diego County – she remains in critical condition – dozens of great white sharks have been spotted by surfers, lifeguards, boaters, and drone pilots.

Many of the sharks were breaching, or jumping, in close proximity to surfers.

 

Picture of juvenile white sharks taken from a drone just a bit north of the beach where the woman was bitten. San O is a white shark hotspot, so be careful! Thanks to Matt Larmand for the picture. #whiteshark #greatwhite #greatwhiteshark #shark #sharkattack

A post shared by Dr. Michael Domeier (@doc_domeier) on May 1, 2017 at 7:39pm PDT

It’s worth nothing that juvenile white sharks – measuring 10 feet or less – feed in coastal waters throughout Southern California. They prey almost exclusively on stingrays and other bottom fishes.

But at San Onofre State Beach, the congregation of so many sharks, with the  attack still fresh in the minds of many, lifeguards and beachgoers remain in a state of heightened concern.

The attack generated national headlines and prompted Michael Domeier of the Marine Science Conservation Institute to write on Facebook:

“The area around San Onofre, California, is one that I’ve expected a bad shark/human interaction to happen sooner or later. As the white shark population has increased this area has become a hotspot for young-of-the-year and juveniles. We hope the victim has a speedy recovery.”

The white shark population off Southern California is growing because of long-imposed fishing-gear restrictions, protections for white sharks, and a robust sea lion population that provides a bountiful supply of prey for adult white sharks.

There will always be hotspots, though: areas where water temperatures and feeding conditions are prime. And although sittings have occurred from Los Angeles to San Diego County, the San Onofre area currently owns the spotlight.

A day after Ericson was bitten while swimming near her boyfriend, who was on a surfboard, three surfers hastened ashore after sighting a large shark, according to Surfline.

A few days later some of the world’s top surfers witnessed a shark breach near the lineup at Lower Trestles, a famous break in San Onofre State Beach.

On Monday and Tuesday, two more shark breaches were caught on video by Surfline wave-cams (posted above).

A handful of nearby sightings also have occurred, and it’s likely that sightings will continue well into summer.

Shark attack reported off San Onofre State Beach; victim airlifted to hospital

A swimmer was bitten by a shark late Saturday at San Onofre State Beach in north San Diego County, according to several reports.

Details were sparse at the time of this post, but 10 News San Diego reported on Facebook that the female victim was airlifted to Scripps Memorial in La Jolla. The Orange County Register reported that the woman, who who had been wearing swim fins, was bitten in the buttocks-thigh area. The extent of her injuries was unknown.

Fox 5 reported that the victim was airlifted at about 6:30 p.m., citing a spokesperson at Camp Pendleton.

Great white sharks are occasionally spotted in this area, but the type of shark involved in Saturday's incident is unknown.

–Generic great white shark image is via Wikipedia

Great white shark feasts on whale carcass towed by Newport Beach; carcass now Oceanside's problem

By Pete Thomas

A humpback whale carcass that was towed offshore by Newport Beach lifeguards last Thursday was preyed upon by a large great white shark on Saturday, and towed offshore again Monday after nearly washing onto the beach in Oceanside in North San Diego County.

The accompanying footage was captured by Keith Poe about 15 miles offshore, southwest of Dana Point. With Poe was Ryan Logan, a Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab grad student, who placed two scientific tags in the female shark estimated to measure nearly 18 feet.

The carcass is that of an adult female humpback whale nicknamed Scarlet. The cause of death has not been determined, but the whale had previously endured a prolonged fishing gear entanglement, and subsequent lice infestation. The carcass was towed by Newport Beach to avoid a messy situation if it were to wash ashore.

The carcass was under tow again early Monday by Oceanside lifeguards, after being spotted yards from the coast. "The carcass almost entered the surf line, and had it done so it would have ended up on the beach," said Greg DeAvila, battalion chief for the Oceanside Fire Department.

The adult female white shark was believed to have long since abandoned its feast, but DeAvila said there were "still plenty of other fish" swimming around the carcass. He added that lifeguards hoped to tow the carcass 10 miles offshore.

So in essence, once again, one county has passed a whale carcass off to another.

Last summer the carcass of another popular humpback whale, nicknamed Wally, was towed offshore by lifeguards in Los Angeles County and Orange County before coming ashore a stinking mess in North San Diego County. (That carcass attracted several white sharks as it drifted offshore.)

After Wally washed ashore near the bottom of the stairs at Grandview Beach in Encinitas, contractors were called upon to truck the remains to a landfill.

 

Whale carcass towed by Newport Beach lifeguards becomes shark bait

By Pete Thomas

A humpback whale carcass that was towed offshore late Thursday after its discovery close to Newport Beach has some human company, but so far it has not attracted large sharks.

“No sharks yet,” said Keith Poe, who tags sharks for science and was with the bloated carcass when reached Friday evening.

The adult female whale, affectionately known as Scarlet,  had endured a fishing gear entanglement and a subsequent infestation of reddish lice.

Scarlet, which somehow had lost the entanglement and much of her lice, was most recently spotted alive last week inside Long Beach Harbor. She whale was thin and presumably sick.

The ballooning carcass was spotted three miles off Newport Beach on Thursday afternoon, and towed several miles offshore.

Poe was vague about his location. He first stated via email that the carcass was 15 miles offshore, drifting slowly toward Oceanside. Poe later stated that the carcass was farther offshore.

“The winds will be shifting all over the place over the next few days,” Poe said, adding that there was a large swell.

The shark tagger hopes that Scarlet will soon attract great white sharks.

Last June, a humpback whale nicknamed Wally was found dead off Dockweiler State Beach in Los Angeles County, and towed offshore.

Poe found his sharks then – and they did not appreciate the intrusion. Several sharks, including an 18-foot white shark, slammed into his 24-foot vessel.

“The boat was full-on attacked 7 different times… usually at sunrise or sunset,” Poe said at the time.

The sharks also feasted on Wally's carcass before losing interest after it began to rot.

Wally was towed at least three times by L.A. County lifeguards. Then, over the course of a week, the carcass drifted southeast and threatened to come ashore at least twice in Orange County, before making landfall in San Diego County. Finally, contractors were hired to cut up and haul the carcass to a landfill.

It remains to be seen whether Scarlet becomes a problem for Oceanside or San Diego lifeguards, but at some point the carcass is likely to attract sharks.

–Photos showing Scarlet on Friday (top) and a white shark feasting on Wally last summer are courtesy of Keith Poe

 

Whale shark ‘longer than a school bus’ surprises scuba divers off Florida (video)

By Pete Thomas

A Florida family was greeted Sunday by a whale shark “longer than a school bus” and accompanied by hundreds of smaller fish.

“I heard my husband yelling over his regulator and looked up to see a what looked like a rolling cloud,” Brock said. “There were cobia and remoras everywhere - then I realized they were attached to something, and that something was a whale shark!”

The rare encounter with a 30- to 35-foot whale shark occurred off West Palm Beach as Brock was scuba diving with her husband, Keith Brock, her 13-year-old cousin, Addie, and their guide, Craig Buss.

Whale sharks are the planet’s largest fish and can reach lengths of about 40 feet. Fortunately for humans, they’re filter feeders and subside largely on plankton and small fishes.

Brock and her group had been diving with Pura Vida Divers at spot called The Trench, and had begun its ascent ascent from about 60 feet when the whale shark materialized in the distance.

“They are rare in Florida,” Brock said. “People dive their entire lives and never get to witness that.”

Making the experience more surreal were all the remoras and cobras attached to or swirling around the whale shark. (Remoras often attach to sharks and will eat parasites and other organisms from the skin of the host animals.)

“Our teeth were chattering,” Brock said. “The whale shark swam right at us, and then through us. Such a gentle giant. He barely had to flick his tail (which was much taller than me) to gracefully glide through the water.

“When he started to swim away we all just looked at each other in total disbelief. It was the most amazing experience I've ever had diving!”

Great white shark breaches near surfers at Trestles, but do they even care? (video)

By Pete Thomas

A wave-cam pointed at the lineup of a popular Southern California surf spot on Monday revealed a fairly large shark breaching just yards beyond a few dozen surfers.

A reasonable person would think that such a spectacle would inspire a mass exodus, given that great white shark sightings in typically spike locally in late spring.

But there’s no visible reaction among surfers in the footage, indicating that they could not see the shark or simply did not care. The footage is from a fixed camera operated by Surfline at Lower Trestles, within San Onofre State Beach in north San Diego County.

Said Surfline’s Travis Kuhlman: “From that distance, they might think it's a baby whale – which is extremely common to see right now close to shore. But, it's also pretty common to see juvenile great whites near shore in Southern California. Especially in the San Onofre area. A lot of surfers would just continue surfing even knowing they had just seen a juvenile great white.”

If the latter is the case, the surfers deserve credit. Juvenile white sharks – those measuring to about 10 feet – prey almost exclusively on small fishes and rays. They do not develop a taste for seals and sea lions until they reach about 12 feet, at which time the migrate to more productive feeding areas.

Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at Cal State University at Long Beach, agreed that this most likely was a white shark. “Based on the girth and pure white belly, I would guess a white,” Lowe said. “Not a pup, but probably a good 8 feet. I think SoCal surfers are getting used to the white sharks now.  Let's hope for an ‘attack free’ year!”

The shark was first spotted at 10:12 a.m., via the webcam, by San Clemente surfer Jason Miller. Within an hour the Surfline post on Facebook had been viewed nearly 8,000 times. Among dozens of comments was this from Jonathan Spitler:

"That's no bueno... they don't play like whales, only breach when they're feeding... but again, maybe it's a talented cgi guy just trying to empty the line up for his afternoon sesh.”

 

Shark bites tourist who grabs it for a selfie, then government goes after her (video)

By Pete Thomas

A Brazilian tourist who grabbed a shark from the shallows of a remote island beach – apparently for a selfie – is fortunate to have retained her fingers, but perhaps the same can’t be said for her dignity.

The accompanying footage, which began to circulate via social media on Monday, shows the woman wrestling with what appears to be a small lemon shark in a prolonged attempt to persuade the critter to let go of her finger.

A male friend steps in to help pry the shark’s jaws open, and ultimately the woman’s hand is free and she becomes jubilant, as she prepares to throw the shark back.

But that wasn’t the end of her ordeal, which began at Fernando de Noronha island off northeast Brazil.

The 35-year-old woman, whose name was not released, required four stitches and was ordered to pay a heavy fine for disturbing protected wildlife within a national park. (More than $6,000, according to some reports.)

The video first surfaced on Streamable, the Fernando de Noronha Facebook page, and Reddit.

–Top image is generic

Boy photographed surfing over a great white shark–but is it really a shark?

By Pete Thomas

Photos circulating via social media show what's said to be a great white shark beneath 10-year-old Eden Hasson as he rides a wave near Newcastle, Australia.

The boy’s father, Chris Hasson, snapped photos as his son surfed the wave. After a look at his viewfinder, Chris called his son to the beach, fearing for his safety.

“It rolled over having a good look at his yummy yellow new wetsuit,” Chris Hasson is quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Chris elaborated on Facebook: “Just as [Eden] is taking off I see something out of the corner of my eye. I keep shooting and after he finishes and starts paddling out I zoom in on the second photo and see he's just done a backhand snap on an 8-foot Great White Shark’s head.”

But shark aficionados became suspicious of the images. One marine biologist, who has exposed phony photos as frauds in the past, said the boy was not in danger because there was no shark in the wave.

“THIS IS NOT A SHARK!” reads the Facebook declaration by Drew Scerbo, scientific advisor to the White Shark Advocacy group.  “It’s a duck-diving surfer on a white surfboard getting out of the way for the kid to catch his wave. You can easily see it if you imagine the surfer's hands on the board. You can also see his foot in the water and the motion of the water itself shows something just submerged.”

Scerbo also criticized the father for allowing the images to go viral.

“The father of this kid should be cited for a false report as he clearly knew better,” Scerbo wrote.

Viewers who blow up the closeup image in Hasson's Facebook post can decide for themselves, but the symmetry from the torso down looks peculiar, and there appears to be a person's foot where the shark’s tail fin would exist.

Pete Thomas Outdoors reached out to Hasson via Facebook message, but he had not responded at the time of this post.

Scerbo, it's worth noting, recently debunked a different story, which showed German model-actress Simone Gutsche wading in the Florida surf with a large shark pictured behind her.

Scerbo found an older photo of a hammerhead shark with its dorsal fin in the exact same position, and with the same markings. It was the same dorsal fin. The image appeared to have been photoshopped and worked into a menacing position behind Gutsche.

 

Haunting image shows seal's final expression after shark attack

A haunting image showing the bobbing head of an elephant seal, an eye still open on its pallid face, leaves little mystery as to what killed the mammal.

The image, captured Tuesday by Eric Mailander off Monterey, Calif., was posted to Facebook with the description: “A gruesome find on the Monterey Bay. The decapitated head of an elephant seal that was the victim of a very large white shark, judging from the tooth prints."

Adult white sharks congregate near Central California elephant seal rookeries in the fall, to feed on the blubbery pinnipeds, which can weigh up to 4,500 pounds.

Their attacks typically involve violent ambush strikes. A shark will often wait for a seal to bleed to death, after the initial bite, before feasting.

Stated Mailander, in reference to the seal: "Probably never knew what hit it.”

After spotting the floating head, Mailander radioed to a nearby Monterey Bay Whale Watch vessel, allowing its passengers to glimpse what was left of the mammal: its bloodless, whiskered face gazing blankly skyward.

Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a researcher and passenger aboard the whale-watching boat, described the reaction of the passengers as one of “morbid fascination.”

–Images are courtesy of Eric Mailander (top) and Alisa Schulman-Janiger

Stunned diver escapes great white shark's fury, after shark lunges into his cage

 

By Pete Thomas

A diver hoping to photograph great white sharks from the safety of a metal cage instead found himself hunkering down while a crazed shark – which had somehow broke through the bars to join the man – tried desperately to escape.

"Oh God... I almost had a heart attack," the diver says in the accompanying video, in the aftermath of his harrowing encounter.

It was the second time in less than a month that a great white shark had entered an occupied cage at Mexico’s Guadalupe Island.

During the latest incident, the shark was following a chunk of tuna being pulled alongside the cage by a crewman aboard Solmar V. The shark lunged, crashed through the bars, and 30 seconds of chaos ensued before the shark leaped out of the cage through its open top.

When the diver climbed out of the cage and onto the boat, there was a tangible sigh of relief.

Great white shark bleeds while finally escaping through the top of the cage.

The video was uploaded Monday by YouTube user Gabe and Garret. Their father, who also has not responded to an inquiry, wrote on Facebook:   

“Great white sharks are awesome and what appears to be an 'attack' on a diving cage is not. They are temporarily blinded when they open their mouths, so when the shark went for the tuna bait on the rope it accidentally slammed into the cage.

“They can't swim backwards so it thrust forward through the cage with a diver inside. Rest assured, no one was injured and after a dramatic half minute, the diver emerged safely.”

How did this happen?

Crewmen sometimes pull roped chunks of tuna alongside cages, allowing photographers shooting through a wide gap to capture memorable images.

In this case, it appears, the crewman let the tuna dangle for too long next to the cage. The shark lunged after the bait and somehow jammed itself into the cage.

These types of incidents are exceedingly rare, but last month at Guadalupe Island, a great white shark swam vertically into an open-topped cage with four divers inside.

That shark, also, was able to get way without anybody – excluding, perhaps, the shark – being injured.

Guadalupe Island, a remote volcanic land mass 160 miles west of Baja California, is seasonal home to dozens of great white sharks. Prime viewing months are August through October.