In less than three weeks, there have been at least four shark attacks in Hawaii.
Sunday’s attacks happened around 8 a.m. One was in the waters off Kauai, the other one off Maui. The Kauai victim is a surfer who was able to swim to shore safely. The Maui victim is a diver who was bitten just above the ankle.
Experts say that case alone is unusual because the victim had not caught anything with his spear to attract the shark.
"From what I understand, the guys had just gotten to the site, swam out to it, and hadn’t really speared anything yet. So that does seem a little strange," shark expert John Naughton said.
What’s even stranger is the frequency of the attacks. The weekend before, a 51-year-old California woman was bitten on her thigh and had cuts on her hand from fighting off a shark.
On Oct. 18, a stand-up paddler was knocked off his board by a shark which then tried to grab his board. Both of those incidents happened on Maui.
All four victims survived and Naughton says they all did something right — they had the sense and courage to fight.
"Try to grab the eyeballs or go for the gills which are very sensitive. The shark realizes ‘whoa, this is not what I thought it was’ and will take off," Naughton said.
In all four cases, it is believed that tiger sharks were the predators. Naughton says there’s no reason to think that they’re getting more aggressive, but the growing population of green sea turtles — their favorite prey — is bringing more sharks closer to the shoreline.
"I think what’s going on is tigers are moving into near shore waters, which they commonly do, and they look for one of their favorite prey items which are sea turtles," Naughton said.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
