June 8, 200520 yr Scary! Just because of this I vow to stay away from New Jersey all summer! Great White shark attacks New Jersey surfer By Jon Hurdle 1 hour, 24 minutes ago PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A 17-year-old surfer in New Jersey lost a chunk of leg flesh in what is likely the state's first attack by a Great White shark in 30 years, officials said on Wednesday. New Jersey resident Ryan Horton was about 25 feet off the beach at Surf City, Long Beach Island early on Sunday afternoon when he felt a sharp pain in his ankle but didn't see what caused it. After paddling back to shore, he was taken to a hospital, Surf City Police said in a statement. Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, New Jersey said photos of the wound confirmed it could only have been made by a Great White. The last recorded shark attack in New Jersey was at Sandy Hook in 1975, the year of the movie "Jaws," which terrified audiences with tales of Great White attacks. Although such attacks are very rare, there is evidence that Great Whites live in the waters off New Jersey. In recent summers, naturalists have found signs of the sharks, including two dead sea turtles with 27-inch (68.5-cm) gashes that could only have been caused by a Great White. Other sharks that share New Jersey waters with swimmers include the "very aggressive" Bull shark; the Mako shark, and the Sand Tiger, none of which could have inflicted the kind of wound Horton suffered, Schoelkopf said. Schoelkopf said there was no reason for people to change their swimming habits because of the latest incident, noting "there's a greater chance of getting hit by lightning" than of being bitten by a shark. Worldwide, there were 61 unprovoked shark attacks on humans in 2004, similar to the number in the previous four years, according to the International Shark Attack File, a service run by the Florida Museum of Natural History.
June 8, 200520 yr QUOTE(winodj @ Jun 8, 2005 -> 02:56 PM) I go swimming at Sandy Hook. Unimportant comment warning... There's a small beach town not far from where I live called Sandy Hook.
June 8, 200520 yr How'd this kid not see the shark at all? Aren't those things f'n huge? I can understand him not seeing it before it bites him, but how in the hell did he not see it after it bit him? This blows my mind and scares the hell out of me.
June 8, 200520 yr QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jun 8, 2005 -> 03:14 PM) How'd this kid not see the shark at all? Aren't those things f'n huge? I can understand him not seeing it before it bites him, but how in the hell did he not see it after it bit him? This blows my mind and scares the hell out of me. The water in the ocean isn't exactly crystal clear, especially near a sediment source like the rivers around N.J. You probably can't see your waist if you're in there swimming vertically. Let alone something below your legs.
June 8, 200520 yr If the mafia would quit throwing corpses in the water, perhaps these great white sharks wouldn't be attracted to coast line regions. It's OBVIOUSLY the problem here.
June 8, 200520 yr Great white sharks like to swim about 100 feet under their pray and then swim straight up at 20-30 mph and grab their pray on the surface. But also they sometimes like to take a nibble of their potential pray to see if its worth it. This kid is lucky he wasn't worth it.
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