Man killed in shark attack off California coast
DAN WHITCOMB, REUTERS
FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012 06:48 PM EDT | UPDATED: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012 07:01 PM EDT
(QMI Agency files)
LOS ANGELES - A shark attacked and killed a beachgoer off California’s central coast on Tuesday in the second fatal encounter at the same popular surfing beach in two years, authorities said.
Few details were immediately available on the incident at Surf Beach near Vandenberg Air Force Base, close to Santa Barbara. The beach was closed by authorities after the attack.
“It was a confirmed shark attack and a confirmed death,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Melissa Jaramillo said.
Fatal shark attacks are rare on the U.S. West Coast, numbering a handful every year, according to the Shark Research Committee, a nonprofit group that documents attacks.
Surfers were the most frequent victims and Great White sharks were the most frequent attackers, the group said.
Authorities could not immediately identify the type of shark involved in Tuesday’s incident or say whether the man killed was surfing or swimming.
Vandenberg Air Force Base spokeswoman Lieutenant Mary Vasta said a friend of the victim called the 911 emergency number in the late morning to report the attack and that base personnel were first to respond to the scene.
The attack came almost exactly two years after a shark attacked a 19-year-old man on a boogie board at the same beach in 2010, pulling him underwater. That man died from wounds to his leg.
