Maui Shark Fatality

[SUP Leave]

A family friend (and his family) was staying at Honokowai last week, and texted me that his beach was closed due to a shark fatality.

So sad. The guy had just retired.

https://mauinow.com/2019/05/25/fatal-shark-encounter-in-kaanapali-maui

We are headed to Maui for a couple weeks of surfing at the end of June. It is hard to explain statistic probabilities to my kids, but they will no doubt find out about the above story and it will freak them out  a lot.  I just tell them that we surf at crowded spots, over shallow reefs and the risk is basically zero, but they will definitely have this in the back of their mind. Its human nature.

[TallDude]

The 'fear of' is what thins the potential crowds. Jaws came out when I was about 11 years old. I was surfing and boogie boarding almost daily with my friends. It freaked us all out pretty bad. We turned to mostly skateboarding. It took a while to get it out of my head. It didn't help that my cousin who lived with us was bit by a shark surfing in Mexico right around that same time. It just made it more real. My kids grew up swimming and in the surf, but the recent frequent shark sightings at the beach right by our house has curb any interest to surf or even go to the beach with me. 

Probably a Tiger shark. My cousin lost part of his hand to a Tiger shark. They are unpredictable, as if any shark is

[Admin]

On average, one tourist dies each week in Hawaii.  It is not the sharks that they need to worry about.  And please do not let them hike in the Makawao forest.  That is near certain death

[Fishman]

On average, one tourist dies each week in Hawaii.  It is not the sharks that they need to worry about.  And please do not let them hike in the Makawao forest.  That is near certain death

And now his wife doesn't want to go to Hawaii. 

[TallDude]

No way to start your retirement. The statistics show an average of one shark attack fatality per year in the US.

[Weasels wake]

As far as the Maui Chamber of Commerce is concerned, there isn't a worse beach on the entire island that it could have happened at.  Right in front of resort row, yikes, at least they have a great assortment of swimming pools.

[PonoBill]

People don't generally care about statistics unless they are an emotionally compromised geek like me. There's an advantage to being weird though, I'm actually comforted by the simple fact that driving to the beach is clearly the most dangerous thing I ever do for watersport.

Retired doctors aside, there simply isn't any fatal happenstance less likely than getting whacked by a shark. Three thousand people a year die from choking to death in restaurants. Yeah, I know that's redundant. Emphasis. They die dead, and they choke. I'd rather be snacked on by a Tiger shark.

4.5 million Americans are bitten by dogs and require hospitalization. Four point five fucking million. 20 people a year are killed by COWS.

[FRP]

People don't generally care about statistics unless they are an emotionally compromised geek like me. There's an advantage to being weird though, I'm actually comforted by the simple fact that driving to the beach is clearly the most dangerous thing I ever do for watersport.

Retired doctors aside, there simply isn't any fatal happenstance less likely than getting whacked by a shark. Three thousand people a year die from choking to death in restaurants. Yeah, I know that's redundant. Emphasis. They die dead, and they choke. I'd rather be snacked on by a Tiger shark.

4.5 million Americans are bitten by dogs and require hospitalization. Four point five fucking million. 20 people a year are killed by COWS.

Thanks Bill
I suspect that the fear of being eaten is deeply imbedded in our DNA. I was working in a veterinary pathology lab many years ago where we did a postmortem on a black bear that had pulled a guy from a tree and ate him. We have been running from large carnivores for hundreds of thousands of years. The thought of trying to swim away from a large carnivore is hopeless. Bob

[SUP Leave]

Definitely some innate/hard wired fear of being eaten. My daughters found out about this attack on Saturday and brought it up on the way to the beach yesterday. I wish Ponobill was there to tell them about cow attacks, but I basically told them "Surfing is dangerous, but it has nothing to do with sharks. The most dangerous parts are falling in shallow water, hitting the reef, getting your leash caught on something, or being hit by another surfer, etc."

As (bad) luck would have it they got to find that out within an hour of my speech. We went to a spot that requires a launch off of a rock breakwall at high tide and a group of beginners paddled out (or tried to) despite my warnings about the tide. I made my kids stay on the beach and paddled out myself, while they watched (took them to a safer spot for a 2 hours session after that). One of the young ladies in the group was not prepared to get through the shorebreak and got her board sideways to the wave and smashed into the rocks.She got a big nasty gash across her jaw. My kids helped her out of the water.

It turned into a great teaching experience. Because of "fear of" they don't like to paddle out into deeper water very much, preferring whitewash, reforms and rolling waves at places like Cove Park. I was able to show them that the true dangers in surfing are shallow water, or basically anywhere a wave comes up against a hard surface is 1,000,000 times more dangerous than a shark. Because every surfer with any experience has the scars of a reef scrape, vana quill or the embarrassment of a separated shoulder, or twisted ankle from a 6" deep sand step off. Nearly every surf injury happens in less than 2' of water.

[spirit4earth]

A teenager lost her leg and some fingers to a shark on Sunday at Atlantic Beach.  Her father punched it in the head several times to get it to let go.  She is still an advocate for sharks.

[SouthCounty]

The 'fear of' is what thins the potential crowds. Jaws came out when I was about 11 years old. I was surfing and boogie boarding almost daily with my friends. It freaked us all out pretty bad. We turned to mostly skateboarding. It took a while to get it out of my head. It didn't help that my cousin who lived with us was bit by a shark surfing in Mexico right around that same time. It just made it more real. My kids grew up swimming and in the surf, but the recent frequent shark sightings at the beach right by our house has curb any interest to surf or even go to the beach with me. 

Probably a Tiger shark. My cousin lost part of his hand to a Tiger shark. They are unpredictable, as if any shark is

Really I haven't heard of any sightings, where and when.......this might just deter me from buying a new wide aquatic. 

[Seafarer]

This is to Pono,
I understand statistics a little, and I think that you could spend every day in the water in Hawaii and Oregon and not get hit.  However, the east coast of the U.S. is different.  The locals know there are bull sharks in the water and they generally do not wade in very deep.  I think if you spent every day swimming for an hour outside of the surf zone in the Carolinas or Georgia you would not last long.

[PonoBill]

I understand locals are pretty nervous about Bull Sharks, and they'll take a chunk out of tire to see if it tastes good. But a hundred years of record keeping gives pretty good evidence that they don't present a greater risk. Tiger Sharks kill more people Bull sharks injure more. Regardless of the species, the total number of injuries and deaths worldwide is tiny compared to just about any other endeavor--six fatalities worldwide per year. Generally one in the USA. People don't spend that much time in cow pastures either, but still...  ...twenty deaths per year in the USA.

We hear about every shark encounter, regardless of the outcome. We never hear about people choking to death in a restaurant--which quite literally happens ten times a day, or serious dog attacks--one thousand per DAY, five fatalities per MONTH.

If you say something about pit bulls or rottweilers people will instantly spring to the defense of the breed, telling you what a wonderful dog fluffy is. They don't care about the statistics, they don't care about reality, they don't care that nearly every dog involved in a fatality was described as a friendly family dog. They like dogs, so it's okay to have their kids play with an animal that not only is as capable as any shark to kill or dismember the kid, but that does so with staggering frequency. And it's almost always children--about 2 to 4 years old.

So no, I don't think people on the East Coast or even in shark alley are making more logical choices about what risks they're going to worry about. It's a phobia. An understandable one, but still, it's a phobia.

[Dwight (DW)]

I understand locals are pretty nervous about Bull Sharks, and they'll take a chunk out of tire to see if it tastes good. But a hundred years of record keeping gives pretty good evidence that they don't present a greater risk. Tiger Sharks kill more people Bull sharks injure more. Regardless of the species, the total number of injuries and deaths worldwide is tiny compared to just about any other endeavor--six fatalities worldwide per year. Generally one in the USA. People don't spend that much time in cow pastures either, but still...  ...twenty deaths per year in the USA.

We hear about every shark encounter, regardless of the outcome. We never hear about people choking to death in a restaurant--which quite literally happens ten times a day, or serious dog attacks--one thousand per DAY, five fatalities per MONTH.

If you say something about pit bulls or rottweilers people will instantly spring to the defense of the breed, telling you what a wonderful dog fluffy is. They don't care about the statistics, they don't care about reality, they don't care that nearly every dog involved in a fatality was described as a friendly family dog. They like dogs, so it's okay to have their kids play with an animal that not only is as capable as any shark to kill or dismember the kid, but that does so with staggering frequency. And it's almost always children--about 2 to 4 years old.

So no, I don't think people on the East Coast or even in shark alley are making more logical choices about what risks they're going to worry about. It's a phobia. An understandable one, but still, it's a phobia.

Bingo!

Bill you are my hero 

[Admin]

There are thousands of dangling legs at every sunlit hour in Hawaii.  At every surfable break.  Then add in the wading tourists, the open water swimmers, the hundreds of guys running around on the bottom with heavy rocks.  It is a gam buffet.  Sharks woldn't be hunters if we were their food, they would be grazers. 

Rationally, he two most worrisome things are the stupidity of another human, followed closely by our own.