Shark Attack / New Jersey

Great White shark attacks New Jersey surfer By Jon Hurdle
1 hour, 41 minutes ago
 


PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A 17-year-old surfer in New Jersey lost a chunk of leg flesh in what is likely the state's first attack by a Great White shark in 30 years, officials said on Wednesday.

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New Jersey resident Ryan Horton was about 25 feet off the beach at Surf City, Long Beach Island early on Sunday afternoon when he felt a sharp pain in his ankle but didn't see what caused it. After paddling back to shore, he was taken to a hospital, Surf City Police said in a statement.

Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, New Jersey said photos of the wound confirmed it could only have been made by a Great White.

The last recorded shark attack in New Jersey was at Sandy Hook in 1975, the year of the movie "Jaws," which terrified audiences with tales of Great White attacks.

Although such attacks are very rare, there is evidence that Great Whites live in the waters off New Jersey. In recent summers, naturalists have found signs of the sharks, including two dead sea turtles with 27-inch (68.5-cm) gashes that could only have been caused by a Great White.

Other sharks that share New Jersey waters with swimmers include the "very aggressive" Bull shark; the Mako shark, and the Sand Tiger, none of which could have inflicted the kind of wound Horton suffered, Schoelkopf said.

Schoelkopf said there was no reason for people to change their swimming habits because of the latest incident, noting "there's a greater chance of getting hit by lightning" than of being bitten by a shark.

Worldwide, there were 61 unprovoked shark attacks on humans in 2004, similar to the number in the previous four years, according to the International Shark Attack File, a service run by the Florida Museum of Natural History.

I don't know, sounds a little fishy.  No one seen the shark that actually did it and the only other evidence they show of white sharks in the area are dead animals with big bite raduises.  Any experts out there?  Is it possible to rule out every other large predator based on bite radius alone?

In local shark news, a white shark sighting was reported in Linda Mar on 5/31/05. www.surfpulse.com Joel you might have company with you during the salmon run this year.

I was diving there the day before that...  

We have the moodiest mascot...I will do what I can, but he seems to have a mind of his own!

Aren't bull sharks way more aggressive than whitey?  My friend was telling me some nasty things about bull sharks.

IMHO tigers are really the worst, whitey is a close second.

Play in the house of the man in the grey suit.....you could be chow.

Just the way it is.

MolBasser

A 17-year-old Forked River surfer was actually bitten over the weekend. He had lost his board in small surf and began swimming for it. He was wearing a wetsuit without booties.
While kicking for the board, he felt something akin to a baseball bat hit his leg. Knowing something was wrong, he paddled in.
On the beach, the surfer signaled over his older brother. The two examined the surfer’s legs, noticing his foot area was bleeding badly. The foot was seriously gashed. The older brother insisted on immediately heading over to Southern Ocean County Hospital.
At the hospital, the wetsuit was cut off the surfer to reveal serious puncture wounds of the foot and ankle.
After initial treatment, the hospital photographed the apparent bite and contacted a Florida shark expert, sending pictures over the Internet. The expert quickly confirmed it was, in fact, a shark bite and guessed either a white shark or a sand bar shark was the culprit.
The foot was treated and bandaged at SOCH and the waverider was released.
The young surfer is now laid up, taking medications for infections and waiting for the initial inflammation to decrease so doctors can do further tests to determine whether any tendon or ligament damage was done.
I have the exact names and incidentals on this incident but will allow SandPaper writer Dan S. to offer all that in the story he is writing up for tomorrow’s issue.
By way of anecdotal input, anglers have been catching brown sharks in the surf. These are undoubtedly ravenously dining upon the cow-nose rays already in the surf. Yes, it’s very early in the season for these summerish rays. To sharks, stingrays are like pizzas with wings, one of their favorite foodstuffs. My guess is an aggressive ray-eating shark (many shark species eat the rays so there’s no exact guessing there) mistook the surfer’s kicking foot for a ray’s wing. Since the surfer was wearing a black wetsuit without booties, a shark would only see the white of the foot – a ray-sized tid-bit.
It might be the first shark attack on the Jersey shore in over 30 years.
You’ll obviously be reading much more on this

Taken from the surfermag message boards.  I've seen a few more articles, apparently it was confirmed as a shark bite but I'm unconvinced it was a white. And the above guest post was me.

Art

The water up there is pretty cold, like our water.  No tropical sharks like bulls or tigers.  Like they said, it could only be a white or sandbar shark.  Sandbar sharks have lots of pointy teeth, while a white has big knifelike teeth - you could probably tell the difference by the type of damage.

It's like up here someone is bit but never sees the shark and they say it was either a white or a sevengill shark...

Just the main reason why I don't surf.  I enjoy my status at the top of the food chain, not being part of it!

Aren't bull sharks way more aggressive than whitey?

I'm not sure about that but I know that the Bull Sharks can swim & hunt in fresh water. They have been known to swim up river for miles and feed aggressively.  

http://www.sharksurvivor.com/sharks/bullshark.htm

http://www.sharksurvivor.com/sharks.html

Joel you might have company with you during the salmon run this year.

That's always been a given - we all know they are out there - it's just a matter of time that we actually "bump" into them. There was a GW sighting at Linda Mar last year as well  

Personally, I find it envigorating that I am part of the food chain on the water.

It really brings the message home of the global community.

Just this morning my cat almost caught a bird.  I'm half sorry the bird got away as my cat made an excellent stalk/attack but more glad I didn't have to clean up the mess that would have resulted.

Life is interesting.  For an animal to grow, another animal must die.

MolBasser

That's always been a given - we all know they are out there - it's just a matter of time that we actually "bump" into them. There was a GW sighting at Linda Mar last year as well  

My friend and I were talking about this the other day after surfing.  We basically came to the conclusion that there's a good chance we've had encounters already, we just didn't know it.  With the amount of time spent in the water and the fact that we've been at beaches on days sharks have been reported (we never find out till after we get home or a couple days later) something has to have cruised by.  I think that can be said for alot of ocean sports.

I think I got bull sharks confused with tiger sharks. DOH  

That's always been a given - we all know they are out there - it's just a matter of time that we actually "bump" into them. There was a GW sighting at Linda Mar last year as well  

My friend and I were talking about this the other day after surfing.  We basically came to the conclusion that there's a good chance we've had encounters already, we just didn't know it.  With the amount of time spent in the water and the fact that we've been at beaches on days sharks have been reported (we never find out till after we get home or a couple days later) something has to have cruised by.  I think that can be said for alot of ocean sports.

Yes you have been in the water with sharks if you surf in Nor Cal. Ask anyone who flies over the coast (IE coast Guard) and ask them how amny times there are sharks within 30 feet of the surfers lined up for a break..They will tell you the dark shapes are closer than you think.