Attack on Surfer Wasn’t a Square Deal

It was an awesome spectacle of nature, caught on tape.

The shark struck hard, lifting the surfer out of the water briefly and flipping him over before sinking out of sight.

You might have seen it on the news the other night. The victim was South African surfer Shannon Ainslie, 15, out with about 10 others at Nahoon Reef off East London, South Africa. The shark was a great white, an estimated 12-footer, that lunged at Ainslie as he was paddling for a wave. The shark’s head and a good two feet of its body came out of the water and were easily visible as it clamped down on Ainslie’s board.

Ainslie was lucky, suffering only a gash on his right hand, which was partially stripped of flesh.

Either the shark missed its mark or realized at impact that the surfer was not a natural prey item. In any event, it was a session Ainslie will never forget.

“I looked straight into its eyes and I thought I was dreaming,” he told the East London Daily Dispatch in an interview from his hospital bed.

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Chances are, the attack on Ainslie was a case of mistaken identity. Great whites are stealthy predators that sneak up on their prey--usually seals and sea lions--by swimming along and blending into the rocky bottom, then striking savagely at the surface.

They usually let their victims bleed to death before moving in to feed.

At the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, great whites arrive every fall to fatten up on elephant seals. While there, they occasionally travel to and from certain areas along the coast. The area from Bodega Bay to Santa Cruz to the Farallones is often referred to as the “red triangle” and a handful of attacks on surfers and bodyboarders have occurred within the triangle, usually in late summer or fall.

Researchers at the Farallones have determined that the less one looks like a seal or sea lion, the less likely one is going to be attacked. They learned this by trolling various decoys through what they call the “high-risk” zone around the islands.

One is square-shaped and another is oval-shaped like a sunfish. Still another an actual surfboard and yet another is a surfboard with a dummy surfer named Buoyhead Bob.

“The square never gets bitten, but it’s investigated as often as the others,” researcher Scot Anderson said in an on-island interview in 1998. “The mola-mola [sunfish] has been bitten once and investigated the rest of the time. The surfboard has been attacked 40% of the time and Buoyhead Bob, on a surfboard in a black wetsuit, 50% of the time.”

In other words, Anderson said, if you’re a square you have little to worry about.

A GRIZZLY TALE

A 400-pound brown bear in southeast Alaska, apparently tired of grass and berries, attacked and partially ate a camper near the small community of Hyder in southeast Alaska.

The body of George Tullos, 41, of Ketchikan was found Saturday at Run-A-Muck campground near Hyder. “The bear attacked him,” state trooper Sgt. Steve Garrett said. “It was not a matter of slapping him around. The bear ate on him.”

The night before the attack, in a very secluded campground, the bear drove a group of campers away from their gear and pawed through their supplies. It had previously been rummaging through garbage cans in Hyder, population 140. An attempt by wildlife experts to trap the bear the night before the attack was unsuccessful.

After the attack, a Hyder resident shot and killed the bear as it was scrounging in a nearby landfill. In its stomach was the victim’s flesh, along with grass, berries and garbage.

Such predatory bear attacks are very rare. Paul Larkin, a U.S. Forest Service ranger, told the Anchorage Daily News, “I think this was just an accident where the victim selected a bad location to camp or take a nap.”

ALBACORE SCORE

Just when things were starting to sizzle again for the San Diego overnight fleet, the wind and swell came up and kept the boats at bay.

Actually, there were only a few cancellations this week, but 15- to 30-knot winds made things miserable for those who did get out and so-so fishing didn’t do much to lift their spirits.

However, the wind started to die down Wednesday and indications--clean, calm water and large schools of fish at 200-plus miles--are that a full-scale invasion of albacore and bluefin will eventually materialize.

“The good fishing has yet to come,” veteran skipper Dan Sansome says. “We’ve had good fishing, but we haven’t had the continuity. Those fish down south will migrate to the local area--it’s just a matter of time.”

Meanwhile, multiday vessels such as Sansome’s American Angler are doing quite well in the area near Guadalupe Island off Baja, catching 15- to 25-pound albacore and much bigger bluefin, along with some bigeye and yellowfin.

CASTING CALL

Mack Oudin, 7, of Huntington Beach, won’t break any records for the seven-pound five-ounce barracuda he caught last weekend, but he might come away much smarter because of it. Oudin is the new leader in the CAST Kids tournament in progress through Labor Day.

The United Anglers of Southern California is donating a $10,000 scholarship in the name of the child, age 10 or under, who catches the largest barracuda. So far about 100 children have been signed up.

Also in progress through Labor Day is the regular California Anglers Saltwater Tournament (CAST) for adults, offering prizes--ranging from fishing tackle to angling vacation packages--for the heaviest barracuda, halibut, yellowtail, albacore, white seabass and sand bass.

For $40 you’re entered in the contest and given a one-year United Anglers membership. For each paid entry, you can enter five children in the kids’ contest for free.

Entry details and weigh-station locations are available by calling (714) 846-1592 or at https://www.castallsummer.com. Proceeds will fund United Anglers’ conservation efforts.

MAMMOTH FLIGHT PLAN

It was only an American Airlines 757, but it had residents of the Eastern Sierra community of Mammoth Lakes gazing skyward in awe, placing calls and sending e-mails in an attempt to learn what a jumbo jet was doing in their neck of the woods.

Low-flying commercial airliners are not part of the everyday scenery in Mono County, but it is hoped they soon will be. The test flight was “a real tangible result of our efforts” to provide air service to Mammoth Mountain, said Rob Perlman, executive director of marketing for Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.

Mammoth is trying to become a destination resort on the level of, say, Heavenly Resort or Squaw Valley USA in the Lake Tahoe area.

Perlman is optimistic that the Federal Aviation Administration in the next month or so will award a grant of $30 million for necessary improvements to Mammoth-Yosemite Airport, which currently accommodates only small aircraft. Improvements include lengthening the runway and upgrading terminals.

Initial service will be from Chicago and Dallas and begin in December 2001, if all goes according to plan. Regional service from other cities, including Los Angeles, would follow, Perlman said.

Mammoth Mountain has been busy upgrading its ski area and a long-term development plan, funded mostly by Intrawest, calls for a resort village that will add 2,500 units, or 10,000 beds.

GOING FOR THE KRILL

The planktonic shrimp-like creatures are back in the Santa Barbara Channel, and with them have come hungry whales. For the past week, at least 20 magnificent blue whales and a few much smaller humpback whales have been holding in an area near the west end of Santa Cruz Island.

Don Hedden of the Rachel G out of Stern’s Wharf in Santa Barbara reports that the big mammals, which have been only sporadic visitors in what has been a disappointing season, have been off the west end of Santa Cruz Island since last Saturday.

“We’ve got ‘em,” he says. “We’ve had really great sightings. Typically, we’ll see them making shallow dives and they’ll occasionally show us a tail fluke. We aren’t seeing them lunge-feeding [on the surface] yet because the krill is still at about 300 feet, but the krill should move up and we expect the whales to stick around through the end of August.”

The Rachel G can be reached at (805) 969-5217.