It's weird to think that the "bad thing" that happened while swimming on the Russian/North Korean border was a shark attack!

2 million sharks are killed for every human attack that occurs. These creatures are being hunted to the point where they are in trouble. We need them to help the balance within the oceans. I feel bad for these folks, but sharks are eating machines, they do what sharks do. I hope they don't just go out and start killing them, leave them alone.

Encourage the killing and consumption of Humans. That is when things will balance out. A Lottery perhaps? All's fair that way......" I'm having an old friend for Dinner tonight".....

You're absolutely right; has anyone taken the time to think about how nasty Mother Nature has been this year? She's paying us back for destroying this planet.

harrykid,shave your brain!

George - You shave your brain. He's right. Along with the fact that the planet's warming. From whatever cause.

honestly? shave your brain? that had no information, if you're going to reply, do it in an informative matter, otherwise its just wasted space
while i disagree with debbie's mother nature being nasty (since when has the earth ever been sentient?) thats mostly because of the phrasing. i agree with harrykid and especially C.Thomas, about the humans being the root cause, the other part of it is just plain bad luck. shark in the water, not used to the area (if great white) does not yet have established hunting areas in waters that can support it. why wouldnt it take a bite of the chunk of meat hitting it on the nose?

Agreed. And it isn't as if sharks are actually eating people. They bite, don't like it, and spit it out. They are searching for food sources. With more and more people invading their world, we can expect even more attacks. If you get in the water and a shark takes a bite, don't blame the shark, blame yourself for getting into his house. Would anyone climb into the lions cage at the zoo when it is hungry?

Newsflash: lions will sometimes attack whether they're hungry or not. It's a prey-drive thing. Just FYI, BTW, no sarcasm intended.

That's right Harry...all the sharks got together and said "Let's go get those humans!".....LMFAO....ur a moron. Typical liberal who tries to put human emotions into an animal. Don't try to over complicate things b/c it was just a shark in the wrong place for these people. It's the earth....they inhabit it. Just like us. Human/wildlife encounters happen all the time...SINCE the beginning of time!

You don't get outside much do you?

Hey Vinny, I hate that too,. Stupid Humans attributing Human qualities to Animals and their behavior.... Stupid Cartoons, stupid Movies, stupid Advertisements.....

i know what you mean, god i fished all last year up and down the coast and couldn't even get a bite. I don't know what the hell im going to feed my kids. DAMN YOU ALL, DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!

You are certainly correct.

A man eating shark would probably have some lemon & a salad with it.

He's called a man eating shark because he is willing to go after and attempt to eat a human being and not just fish and other sea creators that are on his normal diet. He doesn't have to digest the arms or legs, but he did bite them off. That's man eating. And i didn't see were it said the leg washed up on the shore. So i'm assuming he ate it.

sweaver, it's pretty obvious you don't know anything about sharks. They don't possess the mental capacity to say "well hey, that's a human, I'm going to see if it tastes good!" An injured, hungry shark can find its way into shallow water in order to find easy prey. It's not so much "man-eating" as it is "eating anything that looks like it might be food because it's starving and desperate"

I was a man eating shark. I didn't know if I'd like it, but I tried it in a fancy restaurant and it was really good. It was moist and tender and didn't taste fishy. Everyone should try eating shark.

Mako is delicious :)

It's a shark eating man??

when it comes to a great white attacking a person, it is usually done for 2 reasons. 1 its hungry, and 2 it cant see woth a sh!t. if a great white were human it would be collecting disability because it would be legally blind. what it see's is in resemblance to a shadow, or an outline in the water. the rest is smell, and another sense almost like some belive the best put, like a sonar. basically it has no real knowing of what it is about to eat untill after it bites into it. therefore making it not a maneating shark, but a hungry shark, in waters where there maybe little food, and a case of mistaken identity.

i havent followed up on a lot of shark studies, and the last i heard they were still out to lunch on the sonar as a sense eminating from the nose region. so i maybe mistaken. however there is no such thing as a "man eating shark", that only feeds on humans, or has them as their main course.

I agree, they don't eat, they attack there prey. Sharks are not out to get us exclusively, if we look like prey they will attack, it's scary and unfortunate.

Megalodon - Recent studies have shown that it's actually closer to a brain wave scanner, in that it picks up electro-magnetic frequencies. A strong enough magnet has been shown to deter sharks from taking a baited hook.

Sharks cheat - anything that can track me by my body's bioelectric field is simply not playing fair.

Damned impressive evolutionary development though.

SP: I heard something about that the other day. With "rellies" in Australia, I usually read anything about sharks. My Dad was a "Surf Lifesaver" on the coast of Queensland. I was a lifeguard here, but only at pools-lol.

More Aussies are lost due to Melanoma than shark attacks. Have had 3 Melanomas in my family alone. BTW, they still "mesh" the beaches as of '99 when I was last down.

We'd have some pretty nifty tricks if we'd been evolving for 4 million years, too ;)

BTW, I'm also totally not ashamed to admit that I absolutely love Sharks. They are planet Earth's true Apex predator.

"man-biting shark" just doesn't have the same zing.

sp, i hadnt heard that, what i HAVE heard of is vibrations in the water, which from what i had read/heard was that they have a line of nerve endings on their "skin" that react to vibrations similarly to the way an ear drum hears sound, thrashing in the water causes the same vibrational pattern as an injured fish. If you could post something here, whether to argue with some sources for me, or to confirm this, i'd appreciate it.

Hm, interesting - I'd never heard that before, rutroh. Sounds like I've got some more research to do :) The electromagnetic sensory phenomenon is known as electroreception, and you can read more about it at animals dot howstuffworks dot com /fish/ electroreception dot htm

Megalodon

Actually I think that a shark would probably qualify for Disability benefits under the current adm..

Way to derail an otherwise productive and informative conversation, dano!

dano,

i think as long as sharks do not unionise, we wont have to worry too much, lol.

i have heard a few theories about the nose, to include electro magnetic and so on, however, i think there could be more than one use for the organ(s) in the nose. i also heard they can smell blood from over a mile away... perhaps most of the theories are correct in some form.

Actually Great Whites can see quite well, as well if not a bit better than humans. Ever watch the show 'Air Jaws'? The expedition showed how 'whites' swim along the bottom then see a shape similar to their food then attack. It also showed the different attack styles, i.e. straight up compared to attacking from the back.

And, SP, sharks have been on this planet for nearly 300 million years. Although if you're talking about a certain species of shark evolving for 4 million years then that's a different subject.

Maybe they can get Putin up there to take his shirt off and intimidate it the way he does to the Russian people.

LOL you dont know much about the Russians..

wtf does that even mean, a shirtless, intimidating Putin??

I totally agree with you!

Was it the USS Indianapolis during WW2 that lost many Crew members to Sharks after being sunk? Atlantic White tip I believe....?

You're correct, Bob. The Atlantic White Tip is an opportunist due to it being an 'open water' shark rather than sharks who normally make their home close to shore such as nurse sharks. Also, with that many wounded people in the water at one time it would, more than likely, send them into a feeding frenzy.

actually, sharks have been proven to dislike the taste of human blood. if given an option, they will reject the human blood and go for a more aquatic option. those bodies which are never found are eaten by tiger sharks, not great whites. tiger sharks often eat anything, including license plates and suits of armor.

More people in the US die from bee stings than are killed or injured every year world wide from shark attack.

"You ever seen a shark's eyes? They have lifeless eyes. Like a doll's eyes. Until they bite you and the eyes roll over. Then's theres the horrible scream and the water turns red. And despite all the poundin' and hollerin' the sharks come in and rip you to pieces."

"That's some bad hat, Harry"

"Smile you son-of-a", BOOM! I was kinda rootin' for the shark actually...

I was thinking the same thing. Soon as I see that fin cutting through the water I'll just close my eyes and take a deep breath.

actually, if you keep your movements from becoming jerky, you are more likely to survive. sharks and other predators do NOT arbitrarily attack everything they come across, but if something is wounded and sending out distress signals, why pass up an easy lunch? people thrashing/splashing around in the water sends out a vibration in the water similar to that of a wounded fish, add to that the humans are 5ft+ generally, and thats a lot of injured food you're expecting the shark to pass up

Marco... Polo!....Marco!.......Polo!....MarcOOOOHHHHHahhhAHHHHHHHH!!!!

Roger that Captain Quint "double poster"

That's also when many different types of sharks like to 'fish' as well.

"jeez...sharks fint the taste of human flesh offensive...so do I..."

You just haven't tried it prepared the right way...lol

Shallots, Garlic, Thyme, Rosemary, Oregano, freshly cracked Black Pepper, and a nice Burgundy....Mmmmmmm. Backstraps are the tenderest.......

"...with a nice bottle of Chianti".

Do you eat pork? 'Nuff said.

lol, I had that in my head while reading the article.

Once I had that in my head when, unbeknownst to me, I was being stalked by a shark. The unconscious mind is an amazing thing. I kept stopping and looking around me but didn't spot it for a while. When I did I was in the shallows and it couldn't reach me.

Lucky, that. It circled the sandbar I was on and tried to get to me from the other side. Scary. It was only 2 feet long but that encounter was frightening. The boat was a couple of miles away and there was deep water between us.

My spouse was laughing at me. It's very funny now, of course. Had I been bitten it would have been a long trip back to the boat through 3-4 meter deep water, bleeding with a strong current running. The annoying part is my husband didn't believe me when I told him the shark was trying to get me until it circled the sand bar. Of course, had it been able to get across the bar, it would have chomped on him first. LOL.

Yep, that's when you are more likely going to become bait yourself. Especially for wankers who go in swimming near a fishing pier.

Six-year-old Lucy was on a boogie board in a foot-and-a-half of water near
her parents and younger sister. Then as the wave broke onto shore, Lucy was
attacked by what bystanders say was a black finned shark - it's razor sharp
teeth ripped into her calf and foot.
Lucky Lucy may not have been STANDING in the sand, but she was only in a foot and a half of water. That's just about knee deep on most adults.

But we do need to remember that although shark bites are becoming a bit more frequent, so are we spending more time in the water, our oceans are becoming somewhat warmer and their food supplies are diminishing. Not to mention, humans can appear to look like seals even off our surfboards. The good news is that shark attacks are a heck of a lot less likely than getting killed by car accident, airplane crashes, murders and other mayhems. And although we may not understand why bad things happen to us, there is always a way to turn it in to something good. Even facing death can be rewarding. It's making it through the grieving that hurts so bad.

I have. Sharks out of water bite people all the time. They require careful handling.

Eat people. It cuts down on the surplus population and allows our Animals to recover some of their habitat as well as their own populous. Eating Humans can be rewarding. It's making it through the indigestion that hurts so bad.....

Usually a sharks' first instinct is to "disarm" any potential threats

shows he was fighting it off. What balls!!!

Hey, you gotta 'give this Guy a Hand....' Shows he was doing what all Humans do when attacked....DEFENDING. Come on folks, most every Homicide victim that is slashed or hacked to death will have defense wounds showing that their last struggle was in vain......Yeah, what Balls. Just nothing left to scratch them with....

In fact, give this guy two hands

The World groans under the burden of the huge pile of sh$t you just squeezed out about Mankind ever being able to make this a better World. The only thing Mankind has ever done is rape Mother nature and kill each other. While I don't condone the former, I do consider the latter.....

Swimming at dawn and at dusk are risky for anyone, I'm sorry to state. I'm grieved for this young man's loss. Sharks begin to feed in the twilight hours and are most active at night.

Never go into the ocean during those times. Stay out of lakes and rivers, too, at dusk and dawn. In 1955 a man, George Lawson, lost his leg in Lake Michigan to a (suspected) bull shark attack. This attack has been confirmed with the ISAF (International Shark Attack Files) so it's a valid shark attack.

this story leave you speechless, JustMe?

I think you put a "P" where you meant to put an "H"...