Shark Attack

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,506024,00.html

A Young French surfer has died after he was attacked by sharks while surfing in the French Pacific territory island of New Caledonia, police say.
The 19-year-old student's arm was ripped off and his leg bitten when he was attacked "apparently by several sharks" while trying to get back onto a boat with his friend on Friday, police said.
The man's friend managed to get him to shore, but he was dead by the time emergency workers reached him.
The incident took place in an area popular with surfers and was the first fatal shark attack in the territory since September 2007, when a young nurse was killed.
The victim was from northwest France but was studying in the New Caledonia capital, Noumea.

One Saturday afternoon some six or seven years ago I was propping up a seafront bar in Pismo Beach, California when I became aware of some commotion outside, and heard the sound of approaching sirens.

I wandered outside, to find that a 15 year old boy had had a very lucky escape. He had been surfing when he suddenly felt a bump. He looked down and saw a huge shark with its teeth clamped around his board. Fortunately he was only in a few feet of water and near the shore so he leapt off and raced to dry land unscathed.

The police were quickly on the scene followed within a few minutes by a jeep from the local Oceanic Institute! They took the surfboard away to examine the bitemarks to find out what type of shark it was. I took a photo of the bitten board but unfortunately it was a pre-digital film camera so I can't upload it to show you (digital cameras were still in their infancy and ridiculously expensive).

It didn't take long for a local TV news crew to arrive and the boy got his 15 minutes of fame, although it was clear that his initial excitement was turning to the shock realisation of how close he'd come, and after half an hour he was looking quite upset.

I moved on from Pismo the next morning but on the plane home the following week I read in the newspaper that it had been confirmed as a Great White, that it had been spotted several times in the next few days and all the Pismo Beaches had been closed to swimmers until further notice.

Despite what you might think from watching "Jaws" deaths caused by sharks are still rare. In the United States over the past century there has been an average of less than one death per year (compared to 20 deaths a year from snake bites). Almost half of these have taken place in the waters off Hawaii, and there have only been ten fatal shark attacks off the entire California Coast in the past sixty years.

Sharks are bad

Brit killed on Seychelles honeymoon - Bride sees groom eaten by a shark

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/new...elles.html

Sharks n people can not co habbit despite all the shark friendly folks out there it simply can't work if they are hungry and your in the way then prepair to be bitten. Also if you pee in the water you create a scent and attract there attention simple advice stay out of water were sharks are known to roam.

Two mauled in unprecedented Russia shark attacks

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/two-mauled-unpr...36673.html


A shark on Thursday attacked a 16-year-old youth in Russia's Primorye region, officials said, a day after a man lost his hands in a similar shark attack unprecedented for the region.

Officials in Primorye's southern Khasan region in Russia's Fareast said the teenager survived the latest attack but received serious injuries.

"One person -- a 16-year-old teenager -- was injured. He received a tear wound to his thigh and his arteries are damaged," the local emergencies ministry told AFP, adding he was now transported for treatment to the regional capital of Vladivostok.

The attack happened after local authorities earlier in the day banned swimming in the area after a shark chewed off a 25-year-old man's hands in an attack that stunned the region.

On Wednesday, a shark attacked the man just 20-25 meters (yards) off shore in the Telyakovsky bay, while Thursday's attack took place near Zheltukhin island, both in the Khasan region which shares a border with North Korea.

"Following the decision of the head of the administration of the Khasan region, swimming is temporarily banned until the reasons for what happened are established," the emergencies ministry said in a statement.

Scientists said shark attacks on humans were unprecedented in the region and emergencies ministry officials have been touring the area prized for its white sandy beaches and clear water to warn tourists against swimming.

Several types of sharks including the herring shark can be spotted in the northwestern part of the Sea of Japan but they do not attack people and swimming there is considered generally safe.