Juvenile Great White’s possibly to Blame for Fatal Shark Attack off Florida Coast

Out for an afternoon of kiteboard surfing Wednesday, Stuart, Florida resident Stephen Schafer was suddenly surrounded by several sharks, exactly what kind could not be determined by anyone nearby. At approximately 500 ft from shore, no one could have seen what happened but life guard Daniel Lund saw the aftermath through his binoculars. Schafer was hanging on to his board, which is not typical behavio r for kiteboard surfers, so Lund paddled out and saw that there were sharks literally everywhere, circling the struggling swimmer and blood in the water. Schafer was screaming that a shark had bit him.

By some miracle, Lund was not bitten himself and towed Schafer to safety. Reports said Lund was speaking with Schafer the entire time and that Shafer was talking back to him but eventually stopped talking.

Rescue workers preformed CPR on Schafer until paramedics whisked him away to Martin Memorial Hospital where he later died from his injuries. Schafer had a bite mark on his upper right thigh, and numerous teeth marks on his right and left buttocks.

Witnesses told gathering media that the rescue workers did an enormously good job and everything humanly possible but Schafer just wasn’t moving.

There hasn’t been anything like this off the coast of Florida in all the years of record keeping, according to the International Shark Attack File held at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Because they enjoy the colder temperatures, white sharks do not usually make it much further than Jacksonville, according to scientists. And those sharks responsible for the occasional attack are the black tip or spinner sharks. Bull, hammerhead and lemon sharks are sometimes seen off the coast of Florida. This is the first fatal shark attack since 2005 in this area according to the shark file.

A fisherman caught a hammerhead a week ago near Ocean Reef Park as they gather in their annual quest for bailfish.

Shark attacks are up all over the world. On Monday, a 14-year-old New Zealand girl was swimming off the cost with her brother and felt something rub against her leg. She looked down but it had moved behind her. She said her brother’s face told her what was going on and as the gray shark bit her on the thigh, she grabbed her bogie-board and wacked in hard across the nose. The shark retreated and the girl only had minor scratches, yet big holes (teeth marks) in her wet suit. She told reporters she read about thwacking a shark on the nose in a magazine article.

Without seeing the bite marks on Schafer, it would be hard to determine which species of shark attacked him, but speculation is that it was a group of juvenile white sharks. There are only four types of sharks in this particular coastal area that like the taste of humans, bulls, great hammerheads and tigers who enjoy the warmer waters but leave in the winter to go deeper. The juvenile white sharks are the only other species that gather in groups out around this area.

Two years ago, in 2008, Florida saw the largest number of unprovoked shark attacks in the Untied States at 32, which was the same total reported the year before. Windsurfers and surfers have the greatest risk for attack with 57 percent of the reported attacks made by these sportspeople.