Great white shark attack closes California beaches

Great white shark attack in California shut down three beaches over the weekend. A 28-year-old surfer survived the attack Thursday from a great white shark. 

|
Kevin Weng/University of Hawaii/Reuters
A great white shark is pictured in the Eastern North Pacific in this undated handout photograph.

Three beaches along coastal Vandenberg Air Force Base have been closed through the weekend after a 28-year-old surfer survived an attack by a shark, authorities said Friday.

The man, whose name was not released, was surfing Thursday afternoon in an area called Jacks Point when he was bitten on the knee, said Tech. Sgt. Tyrona Lawson, a base spokeswoman.

The surfer was taken to a hospital emergency room, Lawson said in an email. She didn't elaborate on the extent of his injury or his condition.

Lawson said the surfer is a civilian employee who works at Vandenberg.

According to witnesses, he was surfing about a mile north of Wall Beach at about 5:30 p.m. Thursday when the attack occurred. Witnesses described the shark as 10 to 12 feet long.

Vandenberg officials have closed the beach, along with nearby Surf and Minuteman beaches, until 4 p.m. Sunday.

A bite from a great white shark killed a surfer at Surf Beach in October 2012, and a bodyboarder at the same beach died in October 2010 when what appeared to be a great white nearly severed one of his legs.

"Coastal California is home to a healthy great white shark population," Lawson said Friday. "Sharks live here."

Vandenberg, located along the Santa Barbara County coastline, is a missile- and space-launch site about 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Surf Beach, which had been closed for several months during the Western Snowy Plover's nesting season, only reopened earlier this week.

All three beaches provide nesting habitat for the endangered bird.

Lawson said officials decided it was necessary to close the beaches rather than try to keep people out of the water because there are no lifeguards there.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Great white shark attack closes California beaches
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1006/Great-white-shark-attack-closes-California-beaches
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe