Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
20 Foot Great White Attacks Surfer Monterey, CA
Shark News
White shark attacks surfer at Marina State Beach
Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 29 August, 2007 : - - Marina State Beach, Monterey, Ca -- On August 28, 2007 Todd Endres, 24, was attacked by a large white shark while surfing with 8 - 10 other surfers off Marina State Beach near Moss Landing in Monterey Bay. The attack occurred about 11 AM according to Loren Rex a California State Parks spokesman.
To witnesses it appeared as though the shark pulled the surfer under the water with the initial strike. The shark then grabbed Endres a second time before releasing him and swimming away. The victim was observed striking the shark several times during the attack. The shark was estimated to be 20 feet in length.
Endres was airlifted by helicopter to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center where he underwent emergency surgery. Although in serious condition he is expected to recover. Marina State Beach is about 35 miles South of Santa Cruz and is a favorite location for surfing. Officials have closed all beaches from Monterey State Beach to Moss Landing, a 15-mile stretch, and are prohibiting anyone from entering the water until Friday.
www.sharkresearchcommittee.com
White shark attacks surfer at Marina State Beach
Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 29 August, 2007 : - - Marina State Beach, Monterey, Ca -- On August 28, 2007 Todd Endres, 24, was attacked by a large white shark while surfing with 8 - 10 other surfers off Marina State Beach near Moss Landing in Monterey Bay. The attack occurred about 11 AM according to Loren Rex a California State Parks spokesman.
To witnesses it appeared as though the shark pulled the surfer under the water with the initial strike. The shark then grabbed Endres a second time before releasing him and swimming away. The victim was observed striking the shark several times during the attack. The shark was estimated to be 20 feet in length.
Endres was airlifted by helicopter to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center where he underwent emergency surgery. Although in serious condition he is expected to recover. Marina State Beach is about 35 miles South of Santa Cruz and is a favorite location for surfing. Officials have closed all beaches from Monterey State Beach to Moss Landing, a 15-mile stretch, and are prohibiting anyone from entering the water until Friday.
www.sharkresearchcommittee.com
Monterey Bay Aquarium has Great White on Display
This is the third baby great white the aquarium has brought to its aquarium for the public to see.
Monterey Bay Aquarium Puts Another Great White Shark On Display; 'Emissary For Ocean Conservation'
He is a male shark and will be kept until he is too big and as long as his health is good. You can view him from 7a.m. until 7p.m. on the outer bay web cam
Monterey Bay Aquarium Puts Another Great White Shark On Display; 'Emissary For Ocean Conservation'
He is a male shark and will be kept until he is too big and as long as his health is good. You can view him from 7a.m. until 7p.m. on the outer bay web cam
Monday, June 4, 2007
Stumble It!cephalopodcast.com » sharks
cephalopodcast.com » sharks Genie Clark is another shark expert I've admired for a long time.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Chris Fallows famous breach photographer
Chris Fallows spent a lot of time trying to get photographs of great white sharks breaching in the South African waters. This is a little clip of him photographing a large white shark completely airborne while hunting a seal. I didn't know that great whites only jump completely out of the water when hunting, in the South African waters near Seal Island. According to some other shark fans on You Tube it is because it has to do with the isoclimes (sp?) around seal island. The top layer is completely clear for about 3-5 meters, which means that the seals can see the sharks coming from a long way off. The layer below that is very cloudy, so the sharks have learned that to get food they need to come up very quickly from below. to get the pics they are towing a seal carcass behind.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
When in Great Whites turf: The Ocean...
Advice to Swimmers, Surfers, Kayakers & Divers Concerning Sharks in California Waters by John E. McCosker, PhD
The flurry of shark attacks off the Atlantic coast during the summer of 2001 should make us grateful that we live in California where there have been only 82 unprovoked attacks by dangerous sharks in recorded history. Those tropical shark species involved in the Atlantic attacks do not normally occur off California and it is only the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) that concerns us. Nonetheless, should one experience an attack by a white shark, it can be a very serious and most unforgettable event.
At the California Academy of Sciences, my predecessors, colleagues, students and I have studied white shark behavior in order to better predict the risk to humans. Research accomplished and published by our scientists and others at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, the University of California at Davis, and elsewhere have significantly increased our knowledge of White shark biology and thereby reduced the risk of attacks on humans as well as demonstrated the important role that sharks play within marine systems.
The following is a summary of some of our discoveries:
The white shark is the only species in California that presents a significant danger to humans.
White sharks live worldwide in cool, coastal waters. In the eastern Pacific, they live from Baja California, Mexico, to the Gulf of Alaska, and appear to be most abundant in California at the Channel Islands off southern California and locations north of Point Conception, California.
Adult white sharks feed primarily upon pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), and typically stalk their prey from behind and beneath before attacking -- in most cases, neither pinnipeds nor people see the shark before it bites them. The initial attack is so rapid and so forceful (adult white sharks weigh as much as 1-3 tons) that the victim is often lifted from the water, then released, after which the shark typically waits for the victim to bleed to death before attempting to consume it.
White shark attacks upon humans typically occur nearshore in water 10-30 feet deep.
The majority of attacks occur at the surface, placing swimmers, surfers, kayakers, and scuba divers (when at the surface) at greatest risk. The appearance of a surfer on a short surfboard, for example, might easily be mistaken by the shark for a basking sea lion (see photograph).
White shark attacks are not random (see map). The Farallon Islands, Año Nuevo Island (San Mateo County), and Tomales Point and Bird Rock (Marin County) are particularly dangerous locations and should be avoided.
White shark attacks have occurred during every month, but are most common in September and August.
White shark attacks have occurred between 7:00 (AM) and 6:00 (PM).
White sharks can see color, however they do not appear to discriminate in that they usually look skyward before an attack and only observe the surface silhouette of the victim.
One should never enter California waters alone in that the "buddy system" has saved the majority of attack victims. Only six fatalities (7%) have occurred.
Biologists now understand the importance of white sharks in coastal ecosystems through their role as top level predators within food webs. They are protected in California and elsewhere in the world and, like many other species of sharks, are endangered through overfishing and habitat destruction.
To learn more about sharks visit your local library, the web The International Shark Attack File (ISAF), and natural history museums and aquariums.
The flurry of shark attacks off the Atlantic coast during the summer of 2001 should make us grateful that we live in California where there have been only 82 unprovoked attacks by dangerous sharks in recorded history. Those tropical shark species involved in the Atlantic attacks do not normally occur off California and it is only the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) that concerns us. Nonetheless, should one experience an attack by a white shark, it can be a very serious and most unforgettable event.
At the California Academy of Sciences, my predecessors, colleagues, students and I have studied white shark behavior in order to better predict the risk to humans. Research accomplished and published by our scientists and others at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, the University of California at Davis, and elsewhere have significantly increased our knowledge of White shark biology and thereby reduced the risk of attacks on humans as well as demonstrated the important role that sharks play within marine systems.
The following is a summary of some of our discoveries:
The white shark is the only species in California that presents a significant danger to humans.
White sharks live worldwide in cool, coastal waters. In the eastern Pacific, they live from Baja California, Mexico, to the Gulf of Alaska, and appear to be most abundant in California at the Channel Islands off southern California and locations north of Point Conception, California.
Adult white sharks feed primarily upon pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), and typically stalk their prey from behind and beneath before attacking -- in most cases, neither pinnipeds nor people see the shark before it bites them. The initial attack is so rapid and so forceful (adult white sharks weigh as much as 1-3 tons) that the victim is often lifted from the water, then released, after which the shark typically waits for the victim to bleed to death before attempting to consume it.
White shark attacks upon humans typically occur nearshore in water 10-30 feet deep.
The majority of attacks occur at the surface, placing swimmers, surfers, kayakers, and scuba divers (when at the surface) at greatest risk. The appearance of a surfer on a short surfboard, for example, might easily be mistaken by the shark for a basking sea lion (see photograph).
White shark attacks are not random (see map). The Farallon Islands, Año Nuevo Island (San Mateo County), and Tomales Point and Bird Rock (Marin County) are particularly dangerous locations and should be avoided.
White shark attacks have occurred during every month, but are most common in September and August.
White shark attacks have occurred between 7:00 (AM) and 6:00 (PM).
White sharks can see color, however they do not appear to discriminate in that they usually look skyward before an attack and only observe the surface silhouette of the victim.
One should never enter California waters alone in that the "buddy system" has saved the majority of attack victims. Only six fatalities (7%) have occurred.
Biologists now understand the importance of white sharks in coastal ecosystems through their role as top level predators within food webs. They are protected in California and elsewhere in the world and, like many other species of sharks, are endangered through overfishing and habitat destruction.
To learn more about sharks visit your local library, the web The International Shark Attack File (ISAF), and natural history museums and aquariums.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Myths about Great Whites
Great White Shark Attacks: Defanging the Myths
On August 15, 1987, Craig Rogers, a landscape contractor then living in Santa Cruz, California, paddled out to go surfing at a nearby break. It was 7:30 a.m., Rogers was sitting up on his board, legs dangling over each side, searching the horizon for the next set of waves. Abruptly, he noticed his board stopped bobbing in the water.
"I looked down and my eyes filled with a sight of instantaneous horror," said Rogers. A great white shark was biting his board just in front of his left hand; the head was almost three feet (one meter) across. "I could have touched its eye with my elbow."
The shark had surfaced so quietly, Rogers hadn't heard a thing. He flung up his hands, accidentally grazing two of his fingers along the shark's teeth. "I yelled in terror and slid off the board to the opposite side," Rogers explained in a written report made just after the attack.
He was bleeding when he entered the water.
Submerging to his shoulder, he watched the shark gently release his board and sink like a submarine, disappearing beneath him. Later analyses of the puncture marks on his board suggest the shark was 17 feet (5 meters) in length.
"It is typical for a great white to swim up to someone at a relaxed pace, take a bite, then swim off," said Collier. This contrasts with the torpedo-like attacks on the seal, suggesting that the shark's goal is not predation.
Teeth Like Hands
"Great whites are curious and investigative animals," said Martin. "That's what most people don't realize. When great whites bite something unfamiliar to them, whether a person or a crab pot, they're looking for tactile evidence about what it is."
A great white uses its teeth the way humans use their hands. In a living shark, every tooth has ten to fifteen degrees of flex. When the animal opens its mouth, the tooth bed is pulled back, "causing their teeth to splay out like a cat's whiskers," said Martin.
"Combine that with the flexibility of each tooth, and you realize a great white can use its jaws like a pair of forceps. They're very adept at grabbing things that snag their curiosity."
Great whites are also sharp sighted, further evidence that they do not mistake humans for other prey. Scientists believe that sharks see as well below the surface as humans do above it. And they see in color.
"I've seen these sharks swim 70 feet (21 meters) to the surface to investigate a piece of debris no bigger than the palm of my hand," said Martin. They are also known to take bites of buoys, paddle boards, brightly colored kayaks, zodiac boats, and other man-made objects floating in the ocean.
"Everyone wants to think sharks just search out seals, but they bite a lot of things that don't resemble any of their known prey," said A. Peter Klimley, an expert in marine animal behavior at the University of California, Davis, and author of the Secret Lives of Sharks and co-author of Great White Sharks: The Biology of Carcharodon carcharias. "They don't tear these things to pieces. They take a bite, feel them over, then move on."
The Taste Test
If sharks bite to figure out the nature of various objects, then why do they usually spit out people rather than adding them to the menu?
"They spit us out because we're too bony," said Martin.
Great whites have extremely slow digestive tracts; if they eat something less than optimal, it slows down their digestive tract for days, prohibiting them from eating other things. "That makes them selective about what they eat," said Klimley.
The insulation that keeps seals warm is pure fat, which provides twice the calories of muscle. That makes them a favorite of great whites. A high fat diet is mandatory for the great white to maintain its body temperature and keep its brain warm in cold water.
Still, sharks do attack people along U.S. coasts and around the world, even if the nature and number of encounters belie expectations.
There are steps society can take to reduce the number of incidents.
Cities often use beaches as burial grounds for marine mammals that wash up dead—like beached whales. "There is a possibility that when those animals are buried, some of the decaying material washes out to sea and attracts sharks," said Collier.
A healthy avoidance of pinniped colonies is another way to minimize human fatalities. A more subtle point is to steer clear of river mouths dumping spawning fish into the sea. Fish runs attract pinnipeds, which attract great whites. They feast on both seals and salmon, also a favorite shark snack.
"What we need to remember is that if great whites really liked to eat people, there would be a lot more fatalities," said Collier. "And I wouldn't interview so many survivors."
Be the Creature, Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT in the United States, is available only on the National Geographic Channel. Click here to learn more about it.
On August 15, 1987, Craig Rogers, a landscape contractor then living in Santa Cruz, California, paddled out to go surfing at a nearby break. It was 7:30 a.m., Rogers was sitting up on his board, legs dangling over each side, searching the horizon for the next set of waves. Abruptly, he noticed his board stopped bobbing in the water.
"I looked down and my eyes filled with a sight of instantaneous horror," said Rogers. A great white shark was biting his board just in front of his left hand; the head was almost three feet (one meter) across. "I could have touched its eye with my elbow."
The shark had surfaced so quietly, Rogers hadn't heard a thing. He flung up his hands, accidentally grazing two of his fingers along the shark's teeth. "I yelled in terror and slid off the board to the opposite side," Rogers explained in a written report made just after the attack.
He was bleeding when he entered the water.
Submerging to his shoulder, he watched the shark gently release his board and sink like a submarine, disappearing beneath him. Later analyses of the puncture marks on his board suggest the shark was 17 feet (5 meters) in length.
"It is typical for a great white to swim up to someone at a relaxed pace, take a bite, then swim off," said Collier. This contrasts with the torpedo-like attacks on the seal, suggesting that the shark's goal is not predation.
Teeth Like Hands
"Great whites are curious and investigative animals," said Martin. "That's what most people don't realize. When great whites bite something unfamiliar to them, whether a person or a crab pot, they're looking for tactile evidence about what it is."
A great white uses its teeth the way humans use their hands. In a living shark, every tooth has ten to fifteen degrees of flex. When the animal opens its mouth, the tooth bed is pulled back, "causing their teeth to splay out like a cat's whiskers," said Martin.
"Combine that with the flexibility of each tooth, and you realize a great white can use its jaws like a pair of forceps. They're very adept at grabbing things that snag their curiosity."
Great whites are also sharp sighted, further evidence that they do not mistake humans for other prey. Scientists believe that sharks see as well below the surface as humans do above it. And they see in color.
"I've seen these sharks swim 70 feet (21 meters) to the surface to investigate a piece of debris no bigger than the palm of my hand," said Martin. They are also known to take bites of buoys, paddle boards, brightly colored kayaks, zodiac boats, and other man-made objects floating in the ocean.
"Everyone wants to think sharks just search out seals, but they bite a lot of things that don't resemble any of their known prey," said A. Peter Klimley, an expert in marine animal behavior at the University of California, Davis, and author of the Secret Lives of Sharks and co-author of Great White Sharks: The Biology of Carcharodon carcharias. "They don't tear these things to pieces. They take a bite, feel them over, then move on."
The Taste Test
If sharks bite to figure out the nature of various objects, then why do they usually spit out people rather than adding them to the menu?
"They spit us out because we're too bony," said Martin.
Great whites have extremely slow digestive tracts; if they eat something less than optimal, it slows down their digestive tract for days, prohibiting them from eating other things. "That makes them selective about what they eat," said Klimley.
The insulation that keeps seals warm is pure fat, which provides twice the calories of muscle. That makes them a favorite of great whites. A high fat diet is mandatory for the great white to maintain its body temperature and keep its brain warm in cold water.
Still, sharks do attack people along U.S. coasts and around the world, even if the nature and number of encounters belie expectations.
There are steps society can take to reduce the number of incidents.
Cities often use beaches as burial grounds for marine mammals that wash up dead—like beached whales. "There is a possibility that when those animals are buried, some of the decaying material washes out to sea and attracts sharks," said Collier.
A healthy avoidance of pinniped colonies is another way to minimize human fatalities. A more subtle point is to steer clear of river mouths dumping spawning fish into the sea. Fish runs attract pinnipeds, which attract great whites. They feast on both seals and salmon, also a favorite shark snack.
"What we need to remember is that if great whites really liked to eat people, there would be a lot more fatalities," said Collier. "And I wouldn't interview so many survivors."
Be the Creature, Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT in the United States, is available only on the National Geographic Channel. Click here to learn more about it.
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