State: 'Most dangerous shark' one to fear

It was just before the Fourth of July, and a crew from the Mote Marine Laboratory, where Hueter is director of shark research, was attempting to catch blacktip sharks a few miles offshore and fit them with satellite tracking devices.

Instead, they were catching bull sharks, a lot of bull sharks, many more than expected.

Hueter was concerned. He knew the bull shark to be a pugnacious, dangerous animal with a worldwide reputation for savage, determined attacks on large fish and mammals, including humans.

"I started to wonder what was going on," Hueter recalled Friday. "Were there suddenly more bull sharks in coastal waters? I began to worry about what might be looming for the rest of the summer. I had an uncomfortable feeling that something was going to happen."

A few days later, on July 6, something did.

Jessie Arbogast, 8, standing with his uncle in thigh-deep water off the coast of Pensacola, was the victim of a furious, nearly fatal attack by a bull shark.

In the weeks that followed, there were more attacks by what Hueter calls "the most dangerous animal in the Southeast."

It was almost certainly a bull shark, he said, that mauled and killed a man and seriously injured his companion while they swam in shallow water off the North Carolina coast. That attack came less than two days after a 10-year-old boy was killed by a shark -- again probably a bull -- about 135 miles to the north.

The bull shark has earned notoriety in the Tampa Bay area, too. Bite marks showed a bull killed St. Pete Beach resident Thadeus Kubinski last summer as he swam near a dock behind his home.

Hueter said he has an ominous "hunch" about these attacks.

The population of bull sharks may have increased in recent years, he said, as the population of rival sharks -- competitors for food and habitat -- decreased.

In the mid 1980s, he said, a growing middle class in China became a market for the fins and flesh of the blacktip and sandbar sharks. "It's possible that as commercial fishermen culled out these less aggressive species of shark, it worked to the population advantage of the bull shark."

Hueter said he noticed two years ago that he was hearing "more and more stories from tarpon fisherman and guides" about bull shark attacks on hooked tarpon, especially in Boca Grande Pass near Venice.

"They were saying there were so many bull sharks in the pass they could hardly get a tarpon aboard a boat. We pay attention to these stories. We take them seriously, not as scientific evidence, but as the raising of a serious question: Are there more bull sharks than before?

"I don't want to alarm people," he said. "I have no scientific basis for this idea yet. But it is something that should be studied, and I hope to find funds to do that."

Hueter and other shark experts, however, continue to maintain that this summer's attacks are not out of the ordinary in number, and there's no cause for alarm among the public. But that doesn't mean Hueter doesn't respect the potential danger from bull sharks.

For now, he said, the many swimmers and boaters of coastal waters and bays should be wary. Bull sharks are common in the warm, protected waters of Tampa Bay, for example, from May through September. Then they move south to Florida Bay and the Florida Keys, he said, until they return the following spring.

Since the recent fatal attacks have come at 6 p.m. or later, Hueter suggests this rule-of-thumb:

"From 5 through 9 (the fifth month through the ninth) swim only from 9 to 5 (a.m. to p.m.)."

'Most dangerous shark'

The Great White shark is a monster with star power.

It's the fish with the big reputation, the Jaws movie credits, and, with those incredible teeth, even a Hollywood profile.

But some shark experts, Hueter included, think the bull shark is more dangerous.

Records at the International Shark File at the Florida Museum of Natural History show that since the 16th century, the Great White has been most often implicated in unprovoked attacks on humans. Of the 254 attacks attributed to the white shark, 67, or 26 percent, were fatal.

The tiger shark was next on the list with 83 attacks during that period; 29 were fatal, or 35 percent.

The bull shark came next with 69 attacks, 17, or 25 percent, fatal.

But the numbers are misleading, Hueter said. The Great White shark is distinctive and is therefore never misidentified. The bull shark is frequently misidentified, and so is probably guilty of more attacks than it has been blamed for.

"I believe it's the most dangerous shark, because of its aggressive nature and its proximity to people," Hueter said.

The bull shark's well-documented bad attitude is traceable, at least in part, to a heavy dose of testosterone -- more per unit of blood than any other known animal, Hueter said.

How aggressive is it?

Listen to charter boat skipper Ed Walker, 34, who has been sailing the Tampa Bay area from Boca Grande to Tarpon Springs for a dozen years.

A bull shark, he said, "is the meanest, nastiest son of a b---- in the water. I'm on the water a lot, and I do a lot of diving, too. A bull shark is the only thing I fear."

Just this year, he said, bull sharks have ripped to pieces 15 tarpon that Walker or one of his clients had hooked.

Other sharks, notably hammerheads, will bite hooked tarpon, too, Walker said. "But compared to a bull shark, a hammerhead is a sissy. A hammerhead is more tentative. It might bump the tarpon before it bites.

"A bull shark just charges in with its big mouth open and teeth showing and rips the fish to pieces. I tell you, you can't beat them off with a stick."

"That charging in is a pattern we see in their attacks on people, too," Hueter said. "They are not investigators. They don't check things out. They attack, and they continue the attack. Some sharks hit and then stop. Bull sharks don't stop."

Walker remembers a harrowing day on the water in Boca Grande pass, south of Venice.

"I had my eyes opened that day," he said.

Walker, with clients on a 22-foot outboard, said he saw a bull shark in 4 to 6 feet of clear water over a sandbar. "We went over for a look and to snap a few pictures," he said.

"We followed it as it tried to move away. Then he started cocking his head to one side and began a funny kind of wiggle. They next thing I know it takes off and swims around to the back of the boat, comes partly out of the water with its mouth open and bites down on the trim tab (a flat metal flap just beneath the waterline).

"He's twisting and shaking, the boat is shaking and white water is flying all over the place. He bit the trim tab right off.

"I can only think that he was territorial, that he got tired of us following him around.

"I'm telling you they are mean, and they don't like people around."

Hueter said stories of attacks on boats are not uncommon. The bull shark is not territorial, he said, "but he does not like to be crowded. He needs his personal space."

When caught in a net, Hueter said, a young bull shark will remain calm while other sharks flail about, futilely expending energy.

"Even in the net, it's as if he is saying, 'I'm cool, I'm tough. I'm not afraid.' "

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Lucy Morgan

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