KAILUA-KONA — A shark attack at Kukio Bay over the weekend has nearby residents shocked, scared and confused.
“The local community is buzzing about this,” said North Kona resident Dr. Michael Domeier, who lives 5 miles from Kukio Golf and Beach Club. “There so few details it’s hard to dig into this.”
Domeier, president of Marine Conservation Science Institute, said many rumors have been flying around about Saturday’s incident — who was there, who all responded and who all was attacked.
What has been officially confirmed is Hawaii Fire Department received reports of a man bitten by a shark at Kukio Bay about 11 a.m. on Saturday.
Emergency responders say the 25-year-old man was paddleboarding with his father about 100-150 yards offshore at the time the encountered occurred, according to Hawaii Fire officials. Members of the outdoor pursuits staff from the Kukio Community Association responded to the attack by taking a four-person canoe out, recovering the man and bringing him back to shore.
The victim was taken to North Community Hospital then flown to Queen’s Medical Center. Authorities reported that the victim suffered multiple injuries to his hand and leg. On Saturday, it was reported he was in critical condition. As of Monday evening, hospital officials had not provided a condition update.
“Everyone just gets horrified that something like this could happen,” Domeier said. “I remind them that the number of car accidents on the road is horrifying and more frequent.”
Kukio Bay is a public beach to which access is gained through the private and gated communities and resorts of Kukio and Four Seasons Resort Hualalai. The spokeswoman for Hualalai confirmed the victim was not a guest or resident of the Hualalai area.
The spokesman for Kukio was unavailable for comment regarding whether or not the man was a resident of the community or a guest.
The DLNR Division of Aquatic Resources was also notified of the incident on Saturday. Dan Dennison, spokesman for DLNR, said the state agency took an initial report. Per standard procedure, beach closure signs to warn oceangoers up to a mile on either side of the incident location were posted.
The beach closure signs were also posted at Kua Bay because of its distance from Kukio.
The signs remained up until noon the next day.
On Sunday, according to Hawaii Fire officials, they did a flyover from Kukio Bay up to Kawaihae to check if the shark had left the area or if there were others.
Authorities say the only shark spotted that day was a tiger shark in Kawaihae, which is not uncommon since they frequent that area.
According to DLNRDAR website, the last reported shark incident on the Big Island was in November of 2015. The encounter involved a swimmer at Kehena Beach in Puna 100-150 yards offshore.
The victim suffered lacerations to the right foot, according to the website. The species and size of the shark were unknown.
The species and size of shark in Saturday’s attack are also unknown. However, Domeier said, the islands are known to be frequent feeding and breeding grounds for tiger sharks, which can be aggressive.
Domeier added tiger sharks are scavengers by nature.
“A paddleboard looks like a floating dead whale or monk seal so sharks are gonna check it out,” Domeier said. “Sharks don’t intentionally eat people. It’s always mistaken identity.”
Domeier explained that sometimes the way people move in the water stimulates the animals, causing a predatory response.
“Everyone needs to be aware. They’re here year-round,” he said of sharks. When you get in the water, there’s always a small risk you’re going to encounter a shark.”
According to the Marine Conservation Science Institute website, Domeier is renowned for his work with pelagic fishes (particularly billfish), white sharks, California coastal fishes and coral reef fishes.
The institute is a nonprofit organization focused on research on how to manage marine resources.
Maybe the person that writes the headline should read the article first.
Do not expect much from the WHT crew above the HS newsletter level.
“Sharks don’t intentionally eat people. It’s always mistaken identity.”
Yeah, right, tell that to the crew of the USS Indianapolis.
So called shark “experts” seem to say the same thing whenever their is a shark attack on humans. This is a disservice to the public and possibly allowing ocean users to underestimate the dangers of a shark encounter. Will the shark bite a human and spit it out when it realizes it isn’t supposed to eat people? How does a species that have existed for over 400 millions years evolve by being picky about it’s food source?
You answered your own question: 400 million years of evolution. They have not evolved to see humans as a food source. If this were true, we’d see every beach in Hawaii as a giant shark buffet. I could find only 1 shark fatality in Kona in the past 100 years. Sure there might be a few more, but for a matter of perspective, we’ve had two road fatalities outside of the harbor in the past six months.
Been a while since I checked, but I seem to recall more than a few Australian beaches have shark netting. Many sharks are seen bumping into the net trying to get to all that meat on the shore?
Those sharks seem to think humans are good eats.
What and when was the fatality you found, KoaLife? I know of none in the last 30+, Braddah Jesse in the mid-90s’ being the most brutal until that up and coming pro surf amateur got totally mauled at Pohoiki a few years back. If this guy loses a limb, it could be the worst shark attack in modern Hawaii Island history. Lots of shark attack fatality stories from ancient times though. Aloha!
Google “List of fatal, unprovoked shark attacks in the United States” and you’ll see a good list. There is one for Kona, Hawaii in 1987: Daniel Kennedy, which is listed as probable, but unconfirmed. Nothing else in the past 100 years.
Mine ate 2 large pieces from me then chased me to the shore. That is intent yes?
They wont eat attorneys or liberals though……………….professional courtesy.
There is no loyalty among the crooks (sharks and liberals).
Liberals are too high in soy products, low in protein, and saturated with dangerous drugs.
What IS a “liberal?” Terms are boxes for the brain. How many races are there? So how can someone be “racist?” What really is “marijuana?” Why, if i believe (within modern reason) everything George Washington did, am i a “Liberal?” Isn’t that actually Ultra-Conservative? Dropping labels will branch that brain. Funneling thoughts is only fun in the beginning. Go infinite; have no fear. Turn off the box; it’s more fun here.
Hmm.. well what alarmed me was that a few weeks ago in Maui a guy was killed by guy with a Machete at the Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Center restroom. The guy wielding the Machete was probably a drug addict and homeless this is a far bigger danger in Hawaii than sharks.
Oddly you don’t read anything about the Machete murder here?
Was that a registered machete?
Was he given a background check?
Did he have a permit to carry it?
You would hear about it ONLY if the guy was white and used a gun. The elites feel threatened ONLY by whites and armed subjects.
Obviously today’s active shooter attack at youtube headquarters, dead center of California’s & San Francisco’s most stringent gun control laws in the country, is clear and present PROOF that gun control does not work. With all that gun control in that area, how could an active shooting take place if gun control worked?
Well, it turns out is was a muzzie, vegan, Iranian chick, so all will be swept under the rug.
Wife was remarking this morning how fast this shark story has gone quiet in the local media.
Must not upset the tourist gravy train.
Thin the population of tigers and reduce the number of attacks. They are not endangered or even rare.
Indiscriminate shark culls have proven to have no correlation to number of attacks and would kill important marine life with no affect on ocean safety. The shark that bit the guy on Saturday could be 20-30 miles away by now.
Sorry, I am not buying that. The Weaver project seemed to work. Yes, it could be 20 miles away but probably isn’t. So you are saying fewer sharks does not mean fewer attacks?
They never have bothered me, not ever. But then I stay the hell out the ocean too.
The Hawaii experience with shark culling didn’t work. Over 5,000 sharks (550 Tigers) were killed from 1959 to 1976 and it had no effect on shark attacks on people. They stopped it 40+ years ago, because it simply didn’t work, and there was a growing consensus of the ocean ecosystem being harmed by the removal of apex predators.
They also found (and continue to do so) that Hawaii’s shark population is not territorial–one shark claiming a spot and staying there. Instead, the sharks roam hundreds, even thousands of miles, so a cull of one area is unlikely to catch the culprit in an attack.
The shark that attacked the guy on Saturday is probably long gone. It was reported that they did a helicopter search of the Kona-Kohala coast the next day and only found one shark near Kawaihae and that was not the purported size of the culprit.
I’m all for what works, but we should learn from what we’ve done before–culling didn’t work–and take the information we learn from researchers–culling won’t work now and indiscriminate killing of apex predators is bad for the ocean ecosystem. We can then make informed decisions about what we do now.
We have destroyed habitats globally by removing apex predators and by introducing them to help with man-made problems. No need to repeat the mistakes of the past. We are better than this.
That is a sweeping generality which in general I support to some extent. This is a very specific situation with a very specific treatment. What habitat would suffer with less tiger sharks?
The whole ocean ecosystem. Perhaps you didn’t take a high school-level biology class in the past 30 years?
Tiger sharks affect the whole ocean ecosystem? Really? Which biology class taught you that?
Absolutely. They are one of the apex predators of the ocean, important for the health and vitality of oceans. This is a fundamental concept of basic biology, taught at the high school level for past 30-40 years.
Hawaii tried culling Tigers from from 1959 to 1976, killing over 550 Tigers (4,500 other shark, too) and it had no, zero, nada, zilch, affect on shark attacks. Then, they did shark tracking research and found that the Tigers move huge distances between the islands and are not territory-bound, so culling Tigers a day or two after an attack in a specific area is highly unlikely to kill the one that made the attack.
This was figured out over 40 years ago, which is why we don’t do indiscriminate culling of Tigers. The two reasons are clear: 1) bad for the ecosystem, and 2) you’re very unlikely to get the culprit and you’ll kill hundreds of “innocent” Tigers.
Your idea for culling is simply not supported by science.
I am all about science. However, I have read much of the relevant science and it was crappy science. This was research with a goal and they “proved” what they wanted. There are massive amounts of human activity that is bad for the ocean in very specific ways, but to lump it all together as the “ocean ecosystem” is flawed. I don’t see how lowering the numbers of tiger sharks around Hawaii is dangerous to the massive ocean in general. More turtles and seabirds get to live. Sure, people get killed by cars, and that is why drunken driving and speeding and seat belts are in force. Cold comfort that your kid was killed by accident by a shark.
You don’t get it. The Tiger sharks around Hawaii Island are not stationary, territorial. They move between the islands, and, indeed throughout the oceans. Kill every Tiger within five miles of the island today, and I guarantee you that we’ll have Tigers in our waters the next day. There are no borders in the ocean.
Not nearly as many. One human is worth a lot of tigers in my book.
How many sharks should we kill? Do we kill all Tigers, Great Whites, Oceanic White Tips, Black tips, and Hammerheads in our coastal waters? A baited hook doesn’t discriminate.
Should we keep culling every day, because, as you know, the big sharks are not territorial and more will come every day?
How would your proposed cull achieve the success that the 1959-1976 culls failed to achieve? They didn’t work. What could you do that would work? Kill more?
I’m genuinely interested in your answers. I hope you’ll continue the discussion by giving some specifics.
By the way, we’ve had only 1 death by shark reported in the past 100 years in Kona. So, let the readers know how you will reduce this rate of one fatality in 100 years!
Fatalities are one thing losing limbs and ruined life is another. I certainly do not have a vendetta against all sharks although I have been accosted by many. If there were a lot of great whites around here I would feel the same about them. I am talking just about the tigers. It took many years for the sharks to recover from the Weaver culls. That was a long time ago. Was there any indication the local environment was altered or degraded from it? I would not have supported indiscriminate shark culling nor would I now. It isn’t the same situation here now with the fish populations so ravaged and the turtles so numerous and from what I understand shark attacks more prevalent. Is there any number of attacks that would change your mind? All this is just rambling since the legislature is about to protect ALL sharks regardless of the reason. So we will be seeing those useless statement about sending your thoughts and prayers to the families.
Good question:
“Is there any number of attacks that would change your mind?”
Here’s my answer:
We’ve had one death in 100 years in the Kona coastal waters. The Division of Aquatic Resources Shark Incidents website has 0 shark attacks that resulted in injuries in the last 19 years and two in 1999 in the Kona waters.
Right now, these three incidents: 1 death in 100 years and two shark bite injuries in the past 20 do not rise the level of concern for me. It’s probably fair to say that we have several million human hours in the Kona waters every year.
My fear is that people will incite our natural fear of sharks and propose–as you did–Tiger shark culls. They simply do not and cannot work. We have abundant evidence that it’ll be ineffective and quite bad for our ocean ecosystem.
Expand your data to include the other islands. Looking at the culling experiment. I would say that removing all those thousands of sharks would have reduced the population numbers and there is plenty of data showing that too. Isn’t it a bit curious that with that reduction in shark numbers wouldn’t have resulted in fewer attacks? Why would that be? Maybe the experimental design was funky? Maybe the numbers of attacks were too statistically small too shall to show any difference? I am not saying we should cull the tigers, it is illegal right?
That’s the funny thing about science and the scientific process: it can disconfirm incorrect hypotheses. The shark cull from 1959 to 1976 killed over 5,000 (550 Tigers–there’s a lot of by catch with culls) sharks and did not achieve the goal of making our beaches any safer. Here’s the result:
“In spite of such efforts no significant decrease in rate of shark attacks was ever detected. The rationale for culling was a widely-held belief that tiger sharks were site-attached to small home ranges..” (Google quoted text to find the research)
The rest of the published research is about how Tigers roam a large part of the Hawaiian Islands, making a shark cull in a localized area pointless.
Your question: Why would a shark cull not decrease the number of attacks?
That’s a good question, but the data show that it didn’t. The “why” is a good question, worthy of a dissertation by someone, but the fact is, it didn’t. The “what happened” has been answered.
My theory is that there are thousands of shark in the water and thousands of people and shark attacks, exceedingly rare and improbable, are just not statistically significant. Kill 5,000 sharks and there are still many thousands out there. The fact that Kona has had one shark-attack death in 100 years and, now three, attacked in 29 years is a testament to the fact that Tigers are not a danger to us. Killing them will not make the oceans safer.
He is a Human hater F2. Waste no time with this purveyor of lies.
Clearly you’re not “all about science”. A scientific approach would be to look at the debacle of the 1959-1976 shark culls and see that they didn’t improve ocean safety, despite killing 5000 sharks. A scientific approach would look at the shark migration data–there’s a ton of it online–and see that an indiscriminate shark cull of coastal water cannot be successful in the long-term. A person all about science would understand the role of apex predators in the ecosystem–whether it’s lions in Africa, Bald Eagles on the Mainland, Saltwater Crocs in Australia or Tiger sharks in Hawaii. Science is about looking at the evidence and learning from it. And, most of all, someone “all about science” would not discredit an entire discipline and years of research by positing that all the research was a grand conspiracy to to prove what “they” wanted.
That last sentence is an insult and unwarranted. That has nothing to do with me. I know all about apex predators and all the other generalizations you mention. Generalizations are not always useful in specific situations. I did not know about eagles attacking people in the mainland.
Personal attack is their Cognitive Dissonance being upset Fishman2. When their established views (fake news) are challenged they simply attack you.
Yes that “sciemce” was created using Hegelian Dialect. Its simply FAKE much like the so called news that is thrown out to us like chum to argue over.
The real in danger species around Hawaiian are the turtles and the monk seal. Both are on the menu of tiger sharks. Tiger sharks are not an endangered specie. Maybe less tiger sharks would help with the other ???!!!…I think they are too many.
In terms of studies, ALWAYS follow the money. Who is paying for that study? What is their agenda? That is what the study will produce; ALWAYS, with no exception. The “science” is as corrupted as the people paying for it.
Ah, the conspiracy theory that all science is tainted! Great “X-Files” material, but certainly not much validity to it.
I’ll stick with published research that shows shark culls in Hawaii didn’t work and the indiscriminate killing of apex predators is bad for the ocean ecosystem.
Just because you use the word “conspiracy” does not make it a conspiracy and it no longer closes the discussion. It is a FACT that researchers want to continue to receive research funding (I worked for decades in research and I know what I’m talking about). If they displease the donors, they are toast – common sense. The fear of funding withdraw trumps any principle and morals. The results are as corrupted as the donors.
It is also a FACT that monk seals and turtles are endangered species. It is also a FACT that both are on the menu of tiger sharks. Therefore, stop with your baloney code word of “conspiracy” because it doesn’t stop anyone anymore. I think you are more laughable for employing that word for something which is well known as FACT.
Your words, not mine:
“The “science” is as corrupted as the people paying for it.”
That’s a conspiracy theory if I have ever seen one. I couldn’t make that up if I tried. Just call it what it is.
I refute your “FACTS” about science, the scientific process and how academic research is funded. Simply not true at universities, at which most research–the kind done by biologists and oceanographers–is largely funded by federal and state funding and not “donors” that withdraw funding because they are displeased with the outcome.
The island’s turtles are endangered due to past human activity–eating them and their eggs-and not because of Tiger sharks. They are rebounding very well since we stopped eating them and will continue to do so, regardless of the Tiger shark population. The monk seals are, indeed, in a precarious position, but most of them are in the northern islands and, unfortunately, are predated by many of the shark species (not just Tigers). If you could kill all the Tigers in our coastal waters, you would have very little impact on the seal population.
Its called SCIENTISM and its killing us Humans too often.
SCIENTIFIC MISCONDUCT.
Try history dummy. 100 years of it. HOURS – DAYS of research. Not 2 minutes.
Correct. Dolphins the world over are chewed in pieces also as the shark population has been promoted so heavily for decades. Whales doing mass beachings from fear. The evidence is overwhelming. Reunion Island? 10 kids DEAD since 2007’s “marine park” and heaps of Humans mutilated for life.
They would rather thin the human population than the shark population.
That’s the idea. Agenda 2030′ and less Humans. Do it in fractions then cover each one up so we have trouble putting the data together. Since 1992′ Rio Earth Summit this happens. People here are just so dumb. Willing dupes from TV news.
Auwe, buddy. Sharks in Hawaii Nei are at 3% of their ancient/natural levels. How can and what? You fo’ realz?!? Makemake (fatal) kine attacks used to happen wayyy more in ancient times. Millions more people on Hawaii and probably a million more sharks. Today — this kine — is NOTHING.
Yes Sir Victor Coppleson and Alf Dean proved you are correct. They also proved we CANNOT extinct these creatures. Sir Victor Coppleson proved we cannot “endanger” these killers. Your glorious “marine park” is a Human killing field. Look up the MISSING with shark MO. Da.
this is such a poorly researched and written article. The missing details were reported on TV news on Saturday. West Hawaii Today is almost four days behind on this story and the facts.
The moment you enter into the ocean you become part of the food chain.
Yes that is true Ghost. When sharks were listed for “protection” we ocean users might have been updated on shark CONservations progress but no it did not happen. Hence the attack rate.
Agenda 2030′ strikes again. Hang in there mate hope you can make it home.