Shark kills swimmer in Solana Beach just south of OC - local beaches stay open
April 25th, 2008, 9:38 am · 20 Comments · posted by Laylan Connelly, staff writer
Experts believe it was a 12-17 foot great white shark killed the swimmer down in Solana Beach this morning as he trained for a triathlon.
The man was identified during a press conference as Dr. David Martin, a 66-year-old veterinarian of Solana Beach, according to news reports.
He was taken to the Fletcher Cove Park Lifeguard station for emergency treatment where he was pronounced dead on the scene, according to a statement on the city Web site.
The beach and waters in Solana Beach have been cleared and Sheriff’s helicopters are scanning the beaches for the animal, according to the statement.
The attack happened just 150 yards from shore, according to the AP report.
Nearby Orange County beaches will remain open, and have not sent out warnings to beachgoers, despite the expected warm weather that will drive crowds to the beach this weekend.
Check out a video reaction to the shark attack.
State Parks Superintendant Rich Rozzelle said the state beaches – including nearby San Onfore – will remain open, and they have no plans to add signs warning the public.
Back in 2005 when a pair of great whites were hanging around the area, the signs were posted. But there have been no reports of sharks recently, he said.
In San Clemente, lifeguard Kevin Cook said there has been no shark alert sent out to beachgoers, and no reports of sightings.
“We haven’t had any sightings or alerts. We’ve had a lot of phone calls, but is business is going to go on as normal around here,” he said. “We’re kind of right up the street here. It’s close, but it’s considered pretty safe around here.”
Laguna lifeguards said they won’t be closing the beach or sending out shark alerts.
“We’re not having any sightings, and at this point in time we’re not going to do anything as far as any closures go,” said Lt. Tom Trager, who said he’s seen a few sharks locally over the years, but none that have been aggressive towards humans. “Obviously, we all know there’s a few out there. We’re all curious to learn more.”
According to a city press release, Martin was part of the Triathlon Club of San Diego. There were nine swimmers training, with Martin in the middle of the pack.
“We are all stunned and deeply saddened by this rare accident,”
Joe Kellejian, Mayor of Solana Beach, wrote in the release. “Dr. Martin was a good man, an expert swimmer and one who knew these waters well. We wish his family well during this difficult time.”
Sheriff’s helicopters will scan the San Diego beaches to track any possible shark activity until 6 p.m. Coastal cities along San Diego’s North and Central County will remain on high alert for the weekend from south Carlsbad State Beach to Torrey Pines State Beach, according to the release.
Triathete Scott Zornig, 48 of Coto del Caza, said the recent attack isn’t enough to keep him out of the water, and sharks and other dangers are part of the reality of ocean swimming.
“I feel very bad for the family and the person that this happened to,” he said. “But it will not change my feelings about swimming in the ocean.
Zornig said he purposely does not go into the water wearing a wetsuit, because it makes swimmers look like seals – making them a target for great sharks.
“Those happen to be on the menu for great whites,” he said.
Zornig has clocked about 2,000 miles in the ocean, doing swims such as Long Beach to Catalina. He said he once encountered a 12-15 foot tiger shark near Hawaii that nearly ate his swimming partner.
“We grabbed the swimmer just as the shark was lunging for him,” he said. “He hasn’t been in the ocean since.”
According to the city Web site, there had never been a shark attack off Solana Beach, which is located between Cardiff by the Sea and Del Mar, just south of Orange County.
“There have only been two shark sightings in these waters within the past 30 years, both of which were Blue Sharks who were injured and making their way into shallow water to die,” it reads.
Surfer Sean Dunlap, who lives directly in front of where the man was attacked, said he paddles out to where the man was killed every day.
“I’m very scared out of my mind right now,” he said.
He said he often surfs alone or while on lunch break from his work at wavehunters.com.
“The helicopters are still shaking my house, they’re seeing if they can locate the shark still,” he said.
He said the attack won’t keep him from paddling out.
“It’s not going to scare me off, but it’s definitely going to make me have that in the back of my mind,” he said.
There have been recent local reports of shark sightings, with one surfer at Dog Beach who said his board was bitten by a great white shark.
President of the Shark Research Committee Ralph Collier confirmed the Huntington Beach incident was a great white.
Huntington Beach Lt. Mike Baumgartner said the guy who claimed the attack never saw a shark, and safety agencies haven’t seen any first hand. Huntington Beach will remain open.
“It’s the Pacific Ocean, that’s where sharks live,” he said. “At this point, we are operating as normal.”
Collier said there have been 145 attacks on the Pacific Coast since 1900, and that great whites come here to give birth during spring.
Here are a few known cases of great whites in Southern California: A white shark was caught off the Huntington Beach pier two years ago. There was a fatal attack of a diver in 1959 in La Jolla. And a kayaker was killed in Malibu in 1989, with the other kayaker’s body never found.
There was a report as recent as April 10 claiming a shark sighting in Orange County. Mark Wilson said he was surfing at Bolsa Chica State Beach when he saw a triangular dorsal fin moving south about 20 yards from him. “The fin was about 12 inches high and grey/brown in color. It was not threatening in any way,” according to the Web site.
Shark attack brings back memories of OC great white: Photos from 2002
Previous post: Local surfers report shark sightings
For more on the recent report great white report at Dog Beach, click here.
What to do if you see a shark:
- Don’t panic or splash around, stay calm, and try to remove yourself from the water as quiet as possible.
- Being too erratic might provoke them.
- Surf with others
- If you see fish jumping out of the water, that means they’re being chased by a predator.
- And if you feel like something creepy is watching you, get out of the water.
Source: Shark Research Committee
Sciencedude blogger Gary Robbins just sent over a few lines about the law protecting great whites:
California law generally prohibits people from killing great white sharks. Some exceptions are made for commercial fishermen and scientists. The state Fish and Game code says, “Any white shark killed or injured by any person in self-defense may not be landed.”
The law is meant to protect great whites, which play a key role in maintaining the balance of marine ecosystems in California.
Why wouldn’t anyone just go out into the ocean with a spear or harpoon and rub out the sharks deemed too dangerous to man? Great whites, bull sharks, tiger sharks, hammerheads, blue sharks. The less sharks we have in these waters, the less chance this accident would happen again. You don’t have to be a rocket scientists to figure that out. It’s not that complicated.
Has anyone heard if the shark was a member of a terrorist cell? Is he the head of the Solona Al Qaida sleeper cell? What color are we today?
MSNBC had the lamest most embarrassing coverage on this story. I think they scripted it from the movie Jaws. I was waiting for the shark expert to say, “You all know me. You know how I make a livin. Now I can catch this bird but it ain’t going to be for no $2,000 chiefy. I value my neck a lot more than that. For 10,000 I’ll get you the head the tail the whole damn thing.” Obviously our beachs need more money for lifeguards. Stop hamming it up folks.
Hey it’s their ocean, we’re just the guests!
If we got rid of every predator we didn’t like, we’d create an imbalance in the ecosystem. It’s like killing off wolves, only to find that they help control the rabbit population.
Gig says: Why wouldn’t anyone just go out into the ocean with a spear or harpoon…”
Oh boy, we have a live one here. I don’t know where to start.
In repsonse to “Gig’s” response.
Go back to the forth grade you inbred idiot.
First of all, when you swim in their enviroment you take the risk of confrontation with an animal…You don’t run through the jungles of Africa expecting not to be attacked by a lion, do you? Maybe we should kill all the Lions, Tigers and Bears too…Oh my!
Sharks are older than dinosaurs and are still successful as one of the top groups of predators in the ocean. They are highly adapted and play a vital role in the marine environment, similar to that of birds of prey or any other land predator. Sharks are undoubtedly one of the most important in the ecology of the oceans, acting as scavengers as well as top carnivores.
You kill off the sharks idiot, and watch your ocean turn into a giant unswimmable cesspool. I’ll take my chance with the sharks. I would reccomend that the next time you give your opinion, at least learn how to read.
One more reason to live in the Midwest. Great Lakes! Booyah!
What kind of ESP is supposed to tell me that a creepy shark is watching? Just telling me that will make me have that feeling every time I go in the water now. Thanks. Thanks a lot!
I don’t know Buster, I live near Erie and got bit by a Walleye while fishing last year haulin him in…and it cut my finger! Ouch.
And Brian, I didn’t like Gig’s response either, but geez, what is forth grade? did you not get past fourth?
On a serious note, my condolences to the family of that man. He was a veterinarian so maybe that’s how he would have liked to go though. He was doing his hobby at the time too. Other posters are right that that’s the shark’s turf, not ours.
Nice to see the Jaw’s response to the Shark Attack-did the mayor just call out orders directly from the script. Wow — what a show!
It’s funny when people say “we’re just guests in the ocean” - we were just guests on land too, but that didn’t stop us from wiping out every predator that lived in/around the neighborhoods we call home, now did it?
ask yourself why you treat the ocean differently than you treat the land. You drive out every other natural predator on the land, but not the ocean? why?
You don’t say “my neighborhood is the turf of the mtn lion, or the wolf, and we’re just guests”, do you?
stop being hypocrites
“the jungles of Africa expecting not to be attacked by a lion”
All kinds of stupid here. Lions do not predate in jungles.
Better yet, let’s give Gigs a spear gun and put him in the water with the white shark.
It was very sad what happened, but people have to realize that the ocean is the sharks home and we are intruding on their space. Killing a shark because they killed a human won’t solve anything.
Another thing, whether land or ocean animal, we are in their homes. So many homes are being built all over the place. People get hurt by animals and then get upset. Well, maybe you shouldn’t have built your homes over where they used to live. They are running out of places to go because humans are building everywhere. Where do the animals have to live?
Two years ago I predicted to my adult son that there would be an attack off the North San Diego County coastline soon.
The reason is simple: Seals and sea lions are protected species and they are no longer allowed to be killed my fishermen like they have been over the last century. Anybody boating by the bouys off the coast of Carlsbad will know what I am talking about, they are thick out there and fight each other for an empty spot to “sun” themselves (or to get away from the sharks)on the bouys.
This will not be the last attack, in my opinion there will be another one within two years, until the population of sea lions is significantly reduced .
All you people that are criticising Gig; but the ecosystem is already screwed-up, it’s just a question of in favor of which creature. I don’t think the answer is to kill them off, but its not to provide them food for flourish either. Thinning out their food source could lessen the chance of attack. Thats what we’ve done to predetors on land. The risk is that some creatures become endangered, but the cost of not doing it is risk of human lives.
Would you go the local park if there was a significant chance at being eaten by a bear? Would you let your kids play there? Heck lets reintroduce predetors into our backyard while were protecting the sharks. Mark my words; attacks will become more common.
The only animal that has too many is the human. Everyone that stated we are in their turf is exactly correct. Does it make you feel like you are a big person to say thumbs up or down for the life of an animal? We as humans need to clean up our mess that we have made. What if it was the last shark or as in Louisiana in the 1950’s the last cougar was killed by a hunter because the cougar was a top preditor. Now when we hear of foot prints we get excited because maybe just maybe the last cougar was not killed. Our cougars were special because they were smaller and had a darker coat. WE AS HUMANS HAVE ABUSED OUR PLANET FOR FAR TOO LONG. We are the one’s with the brains………LETS USE THEM.
Look, even as all you wildlife worshippers wax on about how magnificent and noble a creature is the great white, I say you’re forgetting that this particular animal, among many so disposed, is more willing than ready, at any moment, without compunction or hesitation, to impose upon any lesser organism the superiority its weaponry (speed, strength, size, teeth) affords, in order to utterly demean, debauch, demolish, destroy and devour whatever it chooses. Somewhere along the way, the two-legs-bad, got-fins-good gang became inclined to confer a kind of saintly privilege to a shark bent on bloody ruin, while denying the same ruthlessness if practiced by a human. Now, just what weaponry does a human bring to bear? Not much in the way of teeth and claws, but by damn, on account of our big stick of a brain, it’s no accident that we are potentially the most fearsome predators ever to stumble around this earth. And we come by that reputation honestly — it’s the only reason we’re still around, the only reason any of us have the luxury to dare to admire, in academic terms, a swimming, biting, remorseless phallus of a marine nightmare that would cheerfully reduce us to bones and blood if it were hungry and found us in any non-tenured context. So I say, take a bang stick into the water, if that’s a help, and let the next adventuring shark get the message about how big a bite we really can be. I hear a lot about how great whites are no longer considered solitary automatons, but are believed to demonstrate a great deal of discretion and even social review within their predatory behaviours. So…. if they’re so goddam smart, maybe they can hep theirselves ta some good ole-fashioned larnin’, and start twiggin’ ta the fact that they oughtn’t mess so with us bony, well-armed hyumuns. In closing, think of your own son or daughter in the jaws of one of these brutes, and ask whether you would truly persist in the deification/justification of these, errr… animals. Would you really say, well, live and let live (the shark that is). Or might you just discover your very own animal nature — you know, the one that bought your ancestors just time enough to spawn you? This is exactly why the shark question is an enduring, acute one: it forces us to consider whether we are content with aspiring to be fish food , or do we perhaps have something bigger in mind?
To cliff K… You are a funny guy! I can’t believe that whole line of BS i just read. You seem cleaver enough to be a novelist or something, but the fact remains… what you said is crazy because these monsterous eating machines are not going to adapt to different behaviors because we are shooting them… Food is the only thing they care about PERIOD! Its called instinct. and we have killed many other species of animals, marine and land, to see that predators never change their behavior. Even when we get em with our Boom Sticks!