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Attacks remind us: It is sharks' water

Panhandle beachgoers are treading lightly but still swimming after two recent attacks.

By BRADY DENNIS and TOM ZUCCO
Published June 29, 2005

	[AP photo]
	A memorial to Jamie Marie Daigle, killed by a shark Saturday, was placed on the sand at Miramar Beach.

CAPE SAN BLAS - The kids built sand castle after sand castle. They flew kites. They played volleyball.

Women lounged on beach chairs and read paperback books. Men tossed bocce balls and perused newspapers. But hardly anyone on Tuesday ventured more than a few timid steps into the calm, emerald-green water.

"Ankle deep, that's it," said 36-year-old Amie Remington of Pensacola, searching for shells and keeping a close watch on her 5-year-old daughter, Virginia.

Officials reopened the beach here Tuesday, a day after 16-year-old Craig Adam Hutto was bitten in the leg while fishing in waist-deep water about 60 feet from shore. Physicians later amputated the Tennessee boy's right leg.

That attack came two days after 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle was killed by a bull shark about 80 miles away, in Miramar Beach. She had been swimming on a boogie board alongside a friend about 200 yards from shore.

The attacks have drawn national attention and dominated local conversation up and down the baby-powder beaches.

To say a wave of fear has washed over the Panhandle would be overstatement. Neither the recent attacks, nor Tuesday's rain showers, have kept tourists away or rattled residents. But they have kept almost everyone in more shallow water.

Kriss Titus, executive director of the Walton County Tourist Development Council and one of many officials scurrying to ease fears, said local hotels remain about 98 percent booked for the holiday weekend.

"It's the busiest weekend of the year," she said. "Everybody gears up for the Fourth of July."

She said nearly three-fourths of tourists are return visitors who will realize that Saturday's attack marked the first ever in Walton County.

"Although tragic, so tragic, I don't think it will affect people coming to the area," Titus said.

Even so, people continue to search for answers. Why now? Why here?

Part of the reason, officials say, could be that Daigle swam too far out, past a sandbar, and that Hutto had bait in his pockets that attracted the shark. But a simpler answer that many locals offer is this: The gulf belongs to sharks, not humans.

"The Gulf of Mexico is not a swimming pool," said Chief Les Hallman, whose South Walton Fire District oversees the county's 26 miles of beaches. "You are swimming in the natural environment of sharks."

He said officials who patrol the area by air and by boat see sharks almost every day. He puts little stock in the suggestion that the attacks are more than unfortunate coincidence.

"This is nothing to overreact to," he said. "I think it's just bad timing."

Shark attacks are rare. But how rare?

The International Shark Attack File puts the odds of being attacked at about 11.5-million to one. There were 30 shark attacks in Florida in 2003, despite millions of people hitting the state's beaches. Most were minor bites on the feet or ankles. Last year, when four hurricanes kept many visitors away, only 12 attacks occurred.

From 1990 to 2001, 1,401 Floridians were killed while riding bicycles. During that same period, three Floridians were killed by sharks.

There was less coincidence about the species of shark involved in the Panhandle incidents.

The species involved in Monday's attack has yet to be identified, but officials said a bull shark caused Saturday's fatal attack. And it was a bull shark that bit the arm off an 8-year-old boy near Pensacola in 2001. The year before, a bull shark killed a man as he swam near a dock behind his St. Pete Beach home.

Carcharhinus leucas , the bull shark, is often blamed for shallow-water attacks not only because it inhabits such areas, but also because it's more aggressive than other sharks found near coastlines.

Bull sharks are dangerous, said Robert Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory, because they're capable of going after large prey such as bottle-nosed dolphins and sea turtles.

"But they do not target us," Hueter said. "If they were, they sure are bad at it. They target other things. But every once in a great while ..."

A dozen or so species of sharks migrate up the Gulf Coast every summer, Hueter said, and they often come into shallow areas to hunt food or give birth. That's when the risk for an attack increases.

"No hurricane is going to change that," he said.

But experts say Hurricane Ivan's arrival in September did shift or obliterate many of the coast's sandbars, which can provide natural barriers to some species of sharks. That led to speculation that the storm may have contributed to the attacks.

"I haven't heard any solid evidence that the conditions in the area had any effect," Hueter said. "My sense is that people are trying to find an explanation."

Absent any real explanation, officials along the coast Tuesday continued to fly purple flags, signaling that dangerous marine life has been spotted. Sheriff's deputies in Walton County also yelled to several people who swam out too far to return closer to shore.

The area's public beaches are not staffed with lifeguards, but local agencies said they plan to step up beach patrols over the holiday weekend.

For now, the thoughts of the attacks brought only passing concern among most tourists along the Panhandle and across Florida.

"You don't drive over 1,000 miles to stay out of the water," said Mark Crandle, who came from Indiana with his family and spent part of Tuesday at Pass-a-Grille Beach. "Florida has so many beach miles, things like this are going to happen, and you have to expect it when you go on vacation."

Back amid the dunes in Cape San Blas, most locals just shrugged off the attacks. John Larson and Zach Dugger, both 16, sat inside the Cone Heads diner talking of how they headed back out to surf and skimboard only hours after Monday's attack.

They said they see sharks regularly, even fish for them on occasion. It's their gulf, not ours, the boys said. Humans just have to tread lightly.

"They're not going to keep me from getting in the water," Larson said. "Maybe the tourists (won't), but it's not going to scare the locals."

He pondered the hysteria, then shook his head.

"Next time there's a car accident, you going to stop driving?"

Times staff writer Brendan Watson contributed to this report, which includes information from the Associated Press.

* * *

For more information about shark attacks and how to avoid them, visit the Web site for the International Shark Attack File at www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/ISAF/ISAF.htm

[Last modified June 29, 2005, 01:20:05]