Shark Facts

Shark Attacks 2012

2012-03-20T16:17:00.001+01:00

shark attacks

Jan 3, 2012 - A 6' bronze whaler (copper shark) attacked 28 year Mike Wells while surfing off North Avoca Beach, New South Wales, Australia. His lower right arm and wrist were lacerated.
Jan 15, 2012 - FATAL - 25 year old Lungisani Msungubana was attacked and killed by a bull shark while swimming at Second beach, Port St. John's, South Africa.
Jan 18, 2012 - A bull shark attacked 44 year old Glen Folkard while surfing off Redhead Beach, New South Wales, Australia. He suffered lacerations to his thigh and buttocks.
Jan 19, 2012 - A 3M (10') tiger shark attacked 26 year old David Pickering while snorkelling off Coral Bay, Western Australia. He suffered lacerations to his right forearm.
March 4, 2012 - An unknown shark bit 19 year old Justin Worral twice on the leg and foot while kite-surfing off Play Linda Beach, Brevard Country, Florida, and caused lacerations.
March 14, 2012 - An unknown shark attacked 15 year old Sidney Levy twice while she was surfing off New Smyrna beach, Volusia County, Florida. Her ankle was lacerated.
March 14, 2012 - At around the same time, an unknown shark attacked 17 year old Nick Romano at the same beach. His calf was lacerated. In both cases, the shark was described as being 4' - 5' long.
March 15, 2012 - A 5' - 6' long bull shark attacked 61 year old Frank A Wacha Jnr. as he was surfing off Jensen beach, Martin Country, Florida. He suffered multiple lacerations to his left arm.
March 20, 2012 - A small bull shark attacked 20 year old Billy O'Leary as he was surfing off Nobby Beach, Gold Coast, Australia. He suffered deep lacerations to his lower left leg.
March 31, 2012 - FATAL - A 4m shark, possibly a great white, attacked and killed 33 year old Peter Kurmann while diving off Stratham Beach in Southwest Australia.
April 3, 2012 - a 10' tiger shark bit 28 year old Joshua Holley twice on the foot while surfing off the North Shore of Oahu, Honolulu.
April 12, 2012 - a great white shark bit 27 year old Michael Demasi on the thigh, causing grazing. He was kayaking in Dolphin Bay, South Australia, at the time, and he jumped out into the water to inspect the damage when he spotted the shark, which had come from below. It continued to attack his kayak, but left him alone.
April 19, 2012 - FATAL - a 4 - 5m great white shark savaged 20 year old David Lilienfeld while surfing at Koeel Bay, Cape Town, South Africa.
April 19, 2012 - an unknown 5' shark bit the hand of 28 year old Justin Ellingham while surfing at Melbourne Beach, Brevard County, Florida, USA. His fingers required reconstructive surgery.
May 6, 2012 - a great white shark bit the paddleboard of 15 year old Rose McKereghan as she was paddle boarding off Catalina Island, California, USA. She suffered no injury.
May 9, 2012 - an unknown shark bit the upper left thigh of 47 year old German national Karin Ulrike Stei as she was swimming off Vero Beach, Indian River County, Florida, USA. She suffered a severe wound and was lucky not to lose her leg.
May 12 - a great white shark attack the kayak of 30 year old Joey Nocchi at Leffingwell Landing, Cambria, Humboltd County, California, USA. He suffered no injury despite being knocked into the water by the force of the attack.
May15, 2012 - an unknown shark attacked 20 year old Tevita Naborisi while spearfishing at Matacucu Reef, Fiji. It bit is head causing severe injuries.
May 20, 2012 - an 8' - 9' tiger shark bit the kayak in which Jerry Gallardo was sitting fishing, at Iroquiois Point, Oahu, Hawaii. He suffered no injury, but his kayak was left with teeth-marks.
May 23, 2012 - a 4' - 5' unknown shark attacked 22 year old Chad Renfro while surfing at Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida, USA. He suffered foot lacerations.
May 29, 2012 - a 3m bull shark attacked 46 year old Benigno Medina Navarette while spearfishing at Boca de la Leña, La Unión, Guerrerro, Mexico. It bit off his left hand.
May 31, 2012 - a 1.5' - 2' long unknown shark bit the foot of 33 year old Megan Konkler as she was wading in shallow water at Avon, Hatteras Island, Outer Banks, Dare County, North Carolina, USA.
June 2, 2012 - an unknown shark attacked the foot of 25 year old Ryan Orellana-Maczynski as he was boogie-boarding at Myrtle Beach, Horry County, South Carolina, USA. His foot was badly bitten.
June 3, 2012 - a 3m white pointer shark attacked the ski of 30 year old Mark Ayre as he was surf-skiing at Redhead Beach, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. he suffered no injury.
June 12, 2012, - a 1.5m unknown shark attacked 42 year old Mike Higgins as he was surfing at Port Campbell, Victoria, Australia. His right foot was lacerated.
June 14, 2012 - an unknown shark attacked 16 year old Jordan Garosalo at Myrtle Beach, Horry County, South Carolina, USA. His right foot was lacerated.
June 18, 2012 - an unknown shark bit the leg of 6 year old Brooklyn Daniel at Ocean Isle, Brunswick County, North Carolina, USA, as he was wading in shallow water.
June 20, 2012 - a 3m unknown shark attacked the ski of 62 year old Martin Kane as he was surf-skiing at Mullaloo Beach, Perth, Western Australia, as he was surf-skiing. His ski was badly damaged but he was uninjured.
June 26, 2012 - a small reef shark bit 16 year old Sage St. Clair as she was sitting in shallow water at Kahana Beach, Maui, Hawaii. She suffered lacerations to he left thigh.
June 26, 2012 - an unknown shark nipped the left foot of a 26 year old surfer at New Smyrna Beach, Volusia County, Florida, USA.
June 26, 2012 - an unknown shark severely bit the thigh of 6 year old Nickolaus Bieber at Juno Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, USA.

Blue Shark Facts

2012-02-06T23:16:00.004+01:00

blue shark

Blue sharks, Prionace glauca to give them their Sunday name, have had a bad Press, unfairly in my opinion.

Those who will tell you this shark is dangerous are those who want to fish them from the sea.

In reality, they are timid beasts who would rather swim away from a confrontation.

If you are dying in the sea, perhaps from falling overboard or even, God forbid, part of a shipwreck, blue sharks may well congregate too close for comfort.

Say “Boo!” to them, and they will quickly disappear.

At 6 to 10 feet in length, they are probably bigger than you, but harmless in the main (in the main, get it?)

So, you are floundering in the water after a shipwreck and you see sharks approaching, how do you know if it is a blue shark?

The clue is in the name.

Blue sharks are blue – dark blue on top, light blue along the flank, and white underneath.

Streamlined, they are long, slim fish with big pectoral fins – those are the ones on the sides.

Pointed snouts and large eyes, and you have a typical blue shark.

Whatever you do, don’t play dead.

They happily feed off carcasses in the water, yours included.

This is what sharks do; it is their job to keep the oceans clean, and stinking carcasses have to be disposed off somehow.

And they need to eat.

While their normal diet consists of fish, squid, octopuses and other ‘sea things’, the stomachs of blue sharks have been known to contain blubber from whales and porpoises.

They hate tuna, apparently, so eat your fill before you end up shipwrecked.

An absolutely fascinating fact about blue sharks (to me anyway, sad I know) is that they swim in groups or schools or whatever you like to call them, of equal sized fish of the same sex.

Doesn't that remind you of school? Hockey, anyone?

Blue shark mothers give birth to anywhere between 4 to 135 pups per pregnancy, according to Wikipedia.

135?

Can you imagine the size of house you would need if that was your offspring?

Female blue sharks reach sexual maturity at only 4 or 5 years of age, which is exceptionally young for the shark family, as most of them follow a similar pattern to humans, not reaching maturity until they are in their teens, at least.

They are pregnant for between 9 and 12 months, according to current knowledge, and when the scientists have discovered the exact time, I will publish it.

Female blue sharks have thicker skin than their male counterparts.

No really.

Nothing to do with being insulted, although if they went to Britain and had 135 children, and needed social security to pay for the mansion they would need to live in, they’d need to develop one.

No, in the blue shark world, the male bites the female when he wants to initiate sex.

Seriously, this is true!

This only goes to prove what I said.

All we need to say to the highly strung and nervous blue shark is “Boo” and they disappear.

We should teach the female how to say it. Instead, God gave them thick skins, which grow thicker as they age.

Blue sharks are exceptionally dangerous to fishermen.

All sharks, when caught and are lying a boat’s deck, have the ability to twist their bodies round lightening quick to bite their captors, even when they look dead.

Blue sharks have honed this talent down to a fine art.

Fishermen are scared of them, and have declared them dangerous because if this.

One up to the blue shark! Go get ‘em!

I admit to not understanding the joy of fishing a sea creature that can’t be eaten (well it can, but it’s not the best) and can only be finned for the pleasure of certain Asian countries who choose to base their cuisine around something that even they admit is tasteless!

The blue shark is classed as near threatened on the IUCN list of endangered species which probably means it isn’t threatened at all. That’s not the point (it has 135 babies at a time), the point is they could be.

Great White Shark Facts

2012-02-06T18:05:00.001+01:00

great white shark spyhopping

The scientific name of the Great White Shark is Carcharodon Carcharias. It is also known as the White Pointer or just as the White Shark.

Their favourite foods are pinnipeds – seals and sea lions, but in reality they will eat or attempt to eat anything in the ocean, including sea birds, as well as other fish and sharks. Given a choice, they prefer foods high in fat which will boost their energy levels for longer while keeping them feeling full.

In a practice known as ‘spyhopping’, great white sharks are one of the few shark species who are known to lift their heads right out of the water to look around. They may do this to see objects, but it is thought this helps them to smell their prey better.

Very little is known so far about their mating or breeding habits. It is known that they are ovoviviparous, meaning that the eggs hatch in utero and stay there until birth, with the bigger and stronger babies eating the smaller, weaker ones.

great white shark

A female great white is pregnant for 11 months.

Great white sharks are fish, but are warm-blooded fish.

The great white is the shark responsible for more attacks on humans each year that any other shark. Most of those attacks are only a test bite, taken because they are inquisitive. Because of their incredible size and strength of their jaws and teeth, more of these single bites are fatal due to the damage they inflict.

Great whites grow to a maximum of 20 feet on average, and can weigh up to 4,000lbs.

The largest great white shark ever caught was reputed to be 37 feet long, according the Guinness Book of Records.

Great white sharks often travel in packs, known as ‘clans’. When one clan meets another, they interact in a friendly and inquisitive fashion.

Like a lot of other types of fish, and all sharks, the great white has an extra sensory organ in their head called the ampullae of lorenzini which allows them to detect the electrical fields of other animals as they move. Those sensors in the great white are highly tuned to detect weak signals given off by both distant prey or injured fish or mammals.

Great white sharks live an average of 30 years, but they are believed to live until 100. As they are now being tagged and studied in detail, this theory will be known or disproved in your lifetime.

Due to over-fishing and shark finning, the great white shark is now listed as vulnerable on the IUCN list of endangered species.

Are Shark Attacks Common?

2012-02-01T22:29:00.001+01:00

great white shark Credit: istockphoto.com/Chuck Babbitt -

Shark attacks are not common, in fact they are very rare indeed.

That is why they makes the world’s Press when they happen.

At the same time it is important we learn that sharks are at the top of the oceanic food chain.

We humans are top of the food chain on land. We belong in the land. They belong in the sea.

While it would be nice to surmise that "never the twain shall meet", in reality we do meet, because we go into the sea.

It is worth pointing out that sharks do not come on land, therefore when we meet a shark, it is on their territory, not ours.

Even so, with millions of us taking to the waters on various pursuits daily, whether that be fishing, diving, bathing, surfing or taking part in any water sports, or even being shipwrecked at sea, there are still relatively few encounters between shark and man.

There are less than 100 reported shark attacks a year, and only a small percentage of them are fatal.

Sharks are naturally inquisitive creatures, and many shark attacks can be put down to a shark tasting us, to see if we are food.

We are alien to them; they do not know what we are.

Very seldom do sharks continue to attack and bite us after the first taste.

I suppose we are not salty enough, or perhaps because we have too many bones.

Commonly people who have been bitten by a shark will see the shark back off, giving the victim time to get out of the water.

This is especially true of great white sharks, the type of sharks who are responsible for the most attacks on humans.

The problem with being given even a ‘friendly’ bite by a great white, is that their teeth are designed for tearing, and they are very big, powerful animals, so sometimes we die from just one bite, especially if an artery was torn.

Torn arteries in shark attacks

Arteries carry oxygenated blood away from the heart at tremendous speeds, so when one is severed, the blood spurts out at a frightening rate. We can lose so much blood so quickly in a really short space of time, that our internal organs shut down, and we die.

A severed artery needs to be stopped up within 3 minutes.

That is why it is of vital importance that everybody learns how to stop someone bleeding to death, or slow down the blood loss until emergency services arrive.

Sharks usually only bite once then realise their mistake

Great whites aside, some sharks do continue biting after the first taste.

Many smaller sharks go into what could be described as a feeding frenzy, when they just lose control and bite and snap at everything in the water, including each other if there are a shoal of them.

oceanic whitetip shark

Included among those are oceanic whitetip sharks.

Then there is the bull shark.

This shark is commonly called the ‘pitbull of the sea’ and for good reason. It’s just a nutter!

Bull sharks when they attack become just like a rabid pitbull, biting and attacking and not stopping, which is why there are a higher percentage of deaths in people attacked by bull sharks than there are for great whites.

bull shark

The vast majority of types of sharks are timid creatures, who would swim away rather than face confrontation.

Even out of the big 3 - the white, tiger and bull shark, most of them totally ignore us even when we swim in the same area of water as them.

However, because of the damage they are capable of inflicting, it is always better to vacate the water the minute the shark spotters tell you there is a shark in the area.

We just never know when they might attack.

If we want to avoid shark attacks, then we have to give them the respect they deserve when we are in their homes, which are the oceans and seas of the world.