Posted on 06/08/2005 5:36:09 AM PDT by Calpernia
SURF CITY BOROUGH, N.J. It could be New Jersey's first shark attack in 30 years.
A 17-year-old surfer, Ryan Horton, was catching some waves near Surf City on Long Beach Island when he felt a pain in his ankle he described as being hit by a baseball bat.
Horton paddled back to shore, and his brother took him to the hospital. There his bloody wound, about three and a half inches long and one inch wide, was sewn up with more than 50 stitches.
The surfer never saw what got him, but his mom sent a picture of the bite to a shark expert in Florida.
The verdict? The expert said it was a classic shark bite, probably from a young great white.
Surf City officials say from time to time shark encounters are inevitable living by the ocean.
Of interest, pictures of sharks breaching
http://www.apexpredators.com/store/showCategoriesProducts.asp?categoryID=6
better than a large great white, that's for sure!
The "breaching shark" isn't coming out of the water for some fresh air, as whales do. They're snatching for food, right? What is it most likely, a bird? another fish he trailing, gone airborne?
I believe this is one in its mouth here:
Dude, that like really bites.
likely another fish. Have seen it many time with bass chasing shad and speckes chasing croaker. Fish ambush their meals and attack from below. A fish near the surface is a target meal for larger fish.
Doh!
That shark attack is a little to close to home for comfort for me. I worry enough with the kid's ocean swimming here, as it is.
Recollecting what happened the last time shark attacks were in the news, this could tend to make me a little nervous.
I have lived at the NJ shore for most of my life. My first guess was it was a Bull. This is the first in my lifetime that I have heard of a Great White attack at the NJ shore. Unusual for them to be so close to shore. Expect a "debunking" soon...
Do you know how far south Surf City on Long Beach is from from LI?
It's always blame whitey! I don't think this was a white shark either - never heard of one near NJ
The Great White attacks different species of pinniped using different techniques. Northern Elephant Seals (Mirounga angustirostris) are not easy to catch. They are station wagon-sized, phenomenal repeated deep-divers, and very powerful swimmers. But at the surface, Elephant Seals have all the maneuverability of an aircraft carrier. In order to tackle an Elephant Seal, a Great White typically attacks from below and behind, immobilizes the seal with a tremendous bite to the hindquarters, then retreats and waits for its prey to bleed to death before returning to feed. Hunks of blubber and flesh are sawed away at the surface, but taken to or near the bottom to be swallowed.
This so-called 'bite-and-spit' strategy is typically employed by White Sharks feeding on adult Northern Elephant Seals, but does not hold for pinnipeds of lesser dimensions. Smaller seals, such as the 1.5-metre Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina), are grabbed at the surface and pulled underwater until they stop struggling, then eaten at or near the bottom; juvenile Harbor Seals are simply plucked from the surface like grapes and eaten whole (Harbor Seals seem like the perfect White Shark snack food: they're abundant, slow-moving, and bite-sized - sort of Phoca McNuggets!) The 2.5-metre-long California Sea Lion (Zalophus californianus) is a more powerful swimmer than the Harbor Seal, and is typically attacked by a White Shark from below, struck in mid-body, dragged below the surface until it stops struggling, then eaten at or near the bottom.
Reflecting upon the White Shark's predatory modus operandi, several interesting patterns emerge. It is interesting that for all three species of pinniped, the White Shark stalks along the bottom, attacks at the surface, and feeds at or near the bottom. It is also interesting that divers attacked by White Sharks tend to be hit at the surface and grabbed mid-body, as though the shark had mistaken them for a California Sea Lion. What is especially intriguing, however, is that divers attacked by White Sharks are let go after the initial strike two out of three times . It seems unlikely that the mighty Great White can be so incompetent a predator that prey - once in its mouth - escapes 67% of the time. What's going on here?
To find out, A. Peter Klimley devised a bizarre modification of Scott Anderson's surfboard experiments. Klimley used a similar rod-and-reel rig to troll the waters off South Farallon with the carcasses of seals, pigs, and sheep (If Hemingway knew, he must have spun in his grave: 'The Old Man and the Sheep'?) White sharks attacked all three types of bait, but consistently rejected the sheep carcasses. Klimley speculates that the high energy demands of the White Shark may be a factor in rejection of food items. On a per unit mass basis, fat or blubber is very a energy-rich food. Since seals and pigs tend to be quite fatty they are 'accepted' after the initial strike; sheep tend to have a significantly lower fat content, and may thus rejected as 'low-quality' food. So, putting all the pieces together, it seems that divers who are attacked by White Sharks are visually mistaken for sea lions and then spat out because they're just too damn skinny to be a worthwhile meal.
And speaking of fat, there is good evidence that blubber scavenged from whale carcasses is a major source of energy-rich food for White Sharks. In August 1979, a 50-foot (15-metre) Fin Whale (Balaenoptera physalus) carcass was discovered floating 40 kilometres off Montauk, Long Island, attended by as many as eight White Sharks. In an attempt to learn how much food a Great White needs, Frank Carey of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI - known as 'hooey' to the irreverent) attached a sonic tag to a 5-metre individual feeding on the whale carcass. Carey was able to track the White Shark for 3.5 days - during which the shark swam 118 miles (190 kilometres) to Hudson Canyon - and obtained base-line data enabling him to make a rough guesstimate of this shark's energy budget (or, to put it more informally, to figure out how many miles/kilometres per mouthful of blubber). The results were surprising: despite the relatively high internal temperature and active lifestyle, Carey calculated that this individual wouldn't need to feed again for 1.5 or even 2 months!
http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/white_shark/catch2.htm
As far as spectacular breaching, take a look at this Mako:
http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/white_shark/catch2.htm
Has a video under the Attacks nav link.
phooey, the video file is corrupt.
my friend surfs near Long Beach Island and Manasquan....I think I will email this to her for a little FYI
Thanks for the post! Enjoyed reading it!
I still have to figure out where Long Beach on the Jersey Shore is. Is it the same Long Beach that is part of NY or close to? Thanks again, :)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1419009/posts
Surfer My have been Bitten by Shark
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