Shark experts investigate attack on swimmer near San Diego

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – Experts are investigating a shark bite to a swimmer near San Diego, seeking to determine the species and uncover any clues that explain the rare event, a leading shark researcher said on Monday.

A 46-year-old man swimming with about a dozen other people in Del Mar was bitten on the torso, left arm and hand about 100 yards offshore Sunday, a Del Mar lifeguard spokesman said. Sea, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The beach remained closed on Monday, with a “shark incident” warning.

Sharks, including great white sharks, come close to swimmers, surfers and paddlers virtually every day in the waters off Del Mar and San Diego’s Torrey Pines Beach, experts say, but there have been only 20 unprovoked bites reported in San Diego County. San Diego for the last 98 years. years, according to the International Shark Attack File database.

In May, a shark knocked a surfer off his board about 40 miles off the coast of San Clemente, the city said.

Chris Lowe, professor of marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach, led a team to Del Mar on Sunday to collect water samples in hopes that cells shed by the animal could be recovered and tested for DNA to reveal the species.

The Shark Lab team also hopes to gain access to the swimmer’s medical records and wetsuit to measure bite marks, which could also reveal the shark’s size and approximate age, Lowe said.

“There are a lot of sharks there and a lot of people around each other every day. So we don’t know for sure why this particular event occurred,” said Lowe, whose team has tagged 225 juvenile white sharks and monitors their movements.

San Diego waters, similar to those in the Santa Cruz-Monterey area, are considered aggregation sites where sharks frequently feed.

Shark bites are even less likely in these areas, Lowe said, likely because these sharks are accustomed to humans and are less likely to mistake them for more typical prey, like sea lions.

“It could have been a new shark in the area that was arriving and wasn’t used to people and made a mistake,” Lowe said.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif.; Editing by Mary Milliken and Bill Berkrot)