Fatal shark attacks rare off Oahu, experts say
The North Shore community is still reeling from the loss Sunday of a beloved waterman Tamayo Perry due to an apparent shark attack off Malaekahana.
Shark experts say, however, that shark attacks still remain a rare occurrence, and even rarer at the site.
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Kim Holland, a shark researcher from the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, said in his 40 years of research, he has no recollection of a fatal shark attack at Malaekahana.
“Even if there had been one, it was a long time ago,” he said. “It’s not as if this is a ‘hot spot.’ In fact, there are no ‘hot spots.’”
In an earlier study, Holland and his team determined that the protected shallow ocean shelf at a depth of less than 600 feet serves as a magnet for tiger sharks from near and far.
These waters most often visited by tiger sharks around Maui also happen to be some of the island’s most popular beaches and ocean recreation sites, a possible explanation for why the Valley Isle sees more shark attacks than any other Hawaiian Island.
Holland said there is a similar shelf off Kahuku, close to the site where the attack occurred, but the presence of tiger sharks does not necessarily translate into shark attacks.
“There are many instances where sharks are sighted and nothing happens,” he said. “We don’t know why these very unusual, very rare attacks occur. We don’t understand why one shark at one time decides to do it. It’s unknown, but it’s just one of those facts of life.”
That being said, any loss of life due to a shark attack is tragic.
“The science and the statistics can’t compensate for the tragedy and the loss that happens,” Holland said. “As scientists we can say this is very unusual and doesn’t happen very often, based on fatal attacks in the last 40 years, but it doesn’t help the family of people that have been attacked. We have to keep that in perspective.”
James Sulikowski, director of Oregon State University’s Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station, agreed that shark attacks are rare because humans are not on sharks’ menus.
“We are not something sharks are actively seeking out,” Sulikowski said. “That is just the bottom line. We don’t taste like what they’re accustomed to — the texture’s different. The problem is often we are in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The way humans move in the water, and the sounds they make when splashing with shiny watches mimic a dead and dying fish, which sharks tend to be attracted to, he said. A surfboard also can resemble a seal or turtle, resulting in cases of mistaken identity.
“There are hundreds of millions of people in the ocean every year,” he said, “and there’s only about 100, or 150 maximum, people (globally) who are bitten by a shark, and of those maybe 10 are fatal.”
Statistically, rip currents and car accidents kill more people every year than interactions with sharks, he said.
“We’re just not part of their regular diet,” he said. “If we were, there’d be a lot more people missing.”
In Hawaii the previous shark attack in the state was reported June 7 in Haleiwa, according to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. A 25-year-old woman was taken in serious condition to a hospital with cuts to her leg, forearm and hand.
The previous fatal attack was on Dec. 30, when a man lost his left leg while surfing about 150 yards from shore at Paia Bay, Maui.
Surfer Mike Morita lived to tell the story of the 8- to 10-foot tiger shark that bit his right leg at Kewalo’s on Oahu in April 2023, which resulted in severe injuries and the loss of his right foot. The water was reported to be clear that day.
Tiger sharks everywhere
Tiger sharks are in waters all around the Hawaiian Isles, according to Holland, who is currently tracking the satellite tag movements of one nicknamed “Waianae Boy” off Oahu’s West Coast.
“There’s basically nowhere in the Hawaiian Islands where tiger sharks do not occur,” he said. “They occur in very shallow and fairly deep water, and they occur far offshore.”
Most scientists believe shark attack frequency is a factor of the high number of people in the ocean, which increases the probability of interactions with sharks.
