- LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A
shark expert warned on Monday that a great white shark has been seen lurking
in the waters off a popular surfing beach in Southern California loaded
with swimmers and surfers but lacking the marine mammals it typically eats.
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- The 15- to 17-foot shark has been sighted by military
pilots several times this summer cruising past San Onofre State Beach north
of San Diego, said Dr. Michael Domeier, president of the Pfleger Institute
of Environmental Research.
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- State park officials said they posted a shark warning
at the beach after a beachgoer videotaped the shark from a bluff overlooking
the ocean, and surfers have reported two smaller sharks swimming within
two feet of their boards and occasionally bumping their feet.
-
- Steve Long, lifeguard supervisor at San Onofre State
Beach, said the 6- to 7-foot juveniles have been hanging around San Onofre
since last spring and "are very docile but they are of a size that
could be intimidating."
-
- In light of last Tuesday's great white attack that killed
a 50-year-old swimmer at a central California beach, the Pfleger Institute's
Domeier said he also wanted to alert the public about the larger shark's
unusual behavior.
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- Domeier said sharks usually migrate through the Pacific
during the summer and only linger when food sources are abundant.
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- 'TROUBLESOME' LACK OF MARINE MAMMALS
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- "Typically what has been thought of as food are
marine mammals ... like whales and sea lions," he said. "There
are not a lot of marine mammals in that area -- that is what is troublesome."
-
- Last Tuesday, a great white shark attacked Deborah Franzman
at Avila Beach near San Luis Obispo, which in central California and some
260 miles up the coast from San Onofre as she swam near a group of sea
lions about 75 yards from shore.
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- Franzman was wearing a full-body wetsuit, fins and goggles,
which state wildlife officials believe contributed to the attack. Franzman
died shortly after she was pulled from the water with massive bite wounds
on her legs.
-
- "Shark incidents are extremely rare," Robert
Lea, a marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife,
said. "Sharks have no interest in feeding on humans but as an ambush
predator they may mistake a human in a dark wetsuit for a marine mammal."
-
- Domeier disagreed. "The politically correct answer
is that she was mistaken for something else, but these are fish and fish
have a very small brain. They don't think about what it is and then come
back and apologize if they attack the wrong thing," he said. "If
a person is making movements or creating some kind of shape that causes
a strike reaction, it is not a mistake -- the shark was hungry."
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- The reason that sharks usually stop attacking after striking
people "is that they are covered with rubber or have a scuba tank
on their back," Domeier said. "If you are not wearing a wet suit
(the shark) may come back and eat you."
-
- Since the 1950s there have been 10 fatal attacks off
the western U.S. coast, state officials said. The most recent fatal attack
prior to Franzman's death occurred in 1994.
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