Friday, October 22, 2010 1:09pm PDT
Surfer fatally attacked da squalo off Central California
October 22, 2010 (15 hours ago)
A squalo attack in the waters north of Santa Barbara killed a 19-year-old college student Friday morning. Lucas Ransom, 19, was bodyboarding with a friend 100 yards from Surf spiaggia when a squalo suddenly pulled him under.
Such deadly attacks are rare. According to California's Department of pesce and Game, there have been 12 fatal squalo attacks since the 1920's.
According to the Associated Press, Ransom was a junior at the università of California, Santa Barbara, majoring in Chemical Engineering. The Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department reports that Ransom's Friends and other bystanders pulled him from the water. He had a severe leg wound and died a short time later.
This is the time of anno that many adult white sharks return from long open-ocean forays and begin to feed on seals and other pinnipeds at coastal and island rookeries off Central and Northern California.
But the top-level predators can lurk off the coast at any time. The last fatal attack da a great white off California was in late April of 2008, involving a swimmer off Solana spiaggia in San Diego County.
Previously, a scuba diver was killed da a white squalo off Mendocino in Northern California in August of 2004. A anno earlier, also in August, a woman was killed as she swam near seals off Avila Beach, which is about 30 miles north of Vandenberg.
Though squalo attacks are rare, there's a consensus among some scientists that white squalo population off California is increasing.
Christopher Lowe, who runs the Cal State Long spiaggia squalo Lab, attributes this to a longstanding ban on fishing for white sharks, a longstanding ban imposed on gill-net fishing in white squalo nursery areas close to the coast, and the phenomenal rise in the number of California sea lions, which constitute a readily available Cibo fonte for large white sharks.
Lowe, however, has not implied that this will translate into più attacks on humans, because white sharks have evolved over millions of years into such specialized predators.
Patric Douglas, CEO of squalo Diver, which is a California-based commercial shark-diving company that has extensive experience with white sharks, has witnessed the predators' behavior up-close dozens of times and can attest to their cautious, investigatory approach to possible prey.
Douglas agrees with scientists that most, if not all white squalo attacks on humans involve mistaken identity, and advises people to stay out of the water very early in the morning when the sun might be at such an angle as to make it difficult for sharks to discern people from prey -- notably pinnipeds.
"Because that's when most of the attacks happen," Douglas said. "Just stay out of the water and give the sharks their due, because that's their time."
Surfer fatally attacked da squalo off Central California
October 22, 2010 (15 hours ago)
A squalo attack in the waters north of Santa Barbara killed a 19-year-old college student Friday morning. Lucas Ransom, 19, was bodyboarding with a friend 100 yards from Surf spiaggia when a squalo suddenly pulled him under.
Such deadly attacks are rare. According to California's Department of pesce and Game, there have been 12 fatal squalo attacks since the 1920's.
According to the Associated Press, Ransom was a junior at the università of California, Santa Barbara, majoring in Chemical Engineering. The Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department reports that Ransom's Friends and other bystanders pulled him from the water. He had a severe leg wound and died a short time later.
This is the time of anno that many adult white sharks return from long open-ocean forays and begin to feed on seals and other pinnipeds at coastal and island rookeries off Central and Northern California.
But the top-level predators can lurk off the coast at any time. The last fatal attack da a great white off California was in late April of 2008, involving a swimmer off Solana spiaggia in San Diego County.
Previously, a scuba diver was killed da a white squalo off Mendocino in Northern California in August of 2004. A anno earlier, also in August, a woman was killed as she swam near seals off Avila Beach, which is about 30 miles north of Vandenberg.
Though squalo attacks are rare, there's a consensus among some scientists that white squalo population off California is increasing.
Christopher Lowe, who runs the Cal State Long spiaggia squalo Lab, attributes this to a longstanding ban on fishing for white sharks, a longstanding ban imposed on gill-net fishing in white squalo nursery areas close to the coast, and the phenomenal rise in the number of California sea lions, which constitute a readily available Cibo fonte for large white sharks.
Lowe, however, has not implied that this will translate into più attacks on humans, because white sharks have evolved over millions of years into such specialized predators.
Patric Douglas, CEO of squalo Diver, which is a California-based commercial shark-diving company that has extensive experience with white sharks, has witnessed the predators' behavior up-close dozens of times and can attest to their cautious, investigatory approach to possible prey.
Douglas agrees with scientists that most, if not all white squalo attacks on humans involve mistaken identity, and advises people to stay out of the water very early in the morning when the sun might be at such an angle as to make it difficult for sharks to discern people from prey -- notably pinnipeds.
"Because that's when most of the attacks happen," Douglas said. "Just stay out of the water and give the sharks their due, because that's their time."
