Sharks in the Shallows: Attacks on the Carolina Coast

PREFACE

We were not alone among the rolling waves in the ocean that day.

The possibility of danger concealed just under the murky green-brown surf was not on my mind that sunny July afternoon in 1993. In my early twenties, I was vacationing at Long Beach, North Carolina (on Oak Island), as my family had done since my childhood. The beach was fairly crowded, and a few family members, friends, and I were wading approximately waist deep. We had been in the warm, salty water for nearly an hour when suddenly a shock wave of fear shot through me as I felt the slick, smooth strength of something meeting my outer left thigh. Despite lasting mere seconds, I remember thinking that whatever it was felt heavy, resembling a log riding a gentle subsurface current. Instinctively I jolted out of the immediate area, alerting my group. No one else seemed too worried about it though, so I tried to shrug it off as the staggering weight of my fear melted into a lingering feeling of uneasiness. Shortly afterward a friend in our group also felt something bump his leg, and he too moved quickly from the area where he was standing. The feeling of eeriness seemed to creep its way onto the others now, coloring us all with the sense of being uncomfortably exposed in the waist-deep opaqueness below the surface. When the same man in our group was bumped a second time, his reaction of panic had all of us scurrying for shore.

We will never know exactly what grazed against us that summer, but whatever it was took away our desire to reenter the surf for the rest of the day. It has remained ingrained in my memory, becoming yet another contributing factor to a lifelong fascination with the shadows in the shallows—especially those in my local waters—swimming just below the surface, unseen, yet sometimes felt.

North and South Carolina, where I have served as an investigator of marine animal bite incidents involving humans for the past fourteen years, are home to a great variety of coastal localities, ideal for those searching for a vacation getaway or desiring to live the salt life year-round. Whether you are looking for small coastal communities filled with southern charm, pristine secluded barrier island beaches, or strands strewn with amusement parks, restaurants, and live entertainment, the Carolinas offer it all. Every year millions of people travel to these Carolina paradises in search of sand, sun, fun, and surf. From North Carolina’s northernmost beach destination, Knott’s Island, to South Carolina’s southernmost barrier island, Daufuskie Island, 500 miles of coastline offer vintage, nationally recognized ocean boardwalks and boast some of the oldest seaside resort areas in America. The common thread linking these diverse destinations is the plentiful stretch of soft, sandy beaches bordering some of the most inviting waters the Atlantic Ocean has to offer. Year-round, visitors and residents alike enjoy the waters of the Carolinas for their beautiful swimming and surfing environments, world-class fishing, famous dive sites, and plentiful boating, canoeing, and kayaking opportunities.

Not only are the shallow estuaries, sounds, and ocean waters of the Carolinas appealing to those of us who love the beach, but they also provide a healthy natural habitat for a variety of marine wildlife. Many species of fish and invertebrates thrive in Carolina waters throughout their entire lives—from tideland areas to offshore locations. The shallow coastal zone waters of the Carolinas routinely boast commercially important species of shellfish and crustaceans such as blue crabs, oysters, and shrimp—as well as fish species, including red drum, spotted sea trout, flounder, and sheepshead. Other species enter Carolina seaside areas primarily to spawn. All of these animals contribute to a vast marine ecosystem that is part of an intricate and valuable food web. At the top of this vast underwater ecosystem remains a group of fish that have become some of the most notorious of all the world’s apex predators, instilling a deep seed of exaggerated and undeserved fear and hatred in the minds of millions of people who live, work, visit, and play by the sea.

These great fish are the sharks.

1 Sharks of the Carolinas

Worldwide, approximately 500 identified shark species exist today, and around fifty-six of those species reside seasonally or year-round in the Carolinas.¹ These Carolina dwellers range in size from the largest fish in the world—the whale shark, which can reach lengths of forty feet—to the small broadband lantern shark, which measures a mere thirteen inches. The warmth of the diverse offshore and nearshore ocean waters—as well as the brackish sounds, estuaries, and coastal rivers of the Carolinas—are ideal for sharks in that they provide good shelter and a vast variety of food. Some species—including smooth and spiny dogfish, Atlantic sharpnose, blacknose, blacktip, sandbar, tiger, dusky, and bull sharks—use Carolina sounds and estuaries as nurser habitats to either pup their young or as areas where young sharks temporarily reside. The following Carolina locations are all documented nursing grounds utilized by sharks—in South Carolina: St. Helena Sound, North Edisto Bay, Charleston Harbor, Winyah Bay, and Bulls Bay; in North Carolina: the Cape Fear River, Ocracoke Inlet, Hatteras Inlet, Pamlico Sound, and Oregon Inlet.

The Importance of Sharks

Have you considered how much we depend on the ocean for our survival? Oceans cover nearly three-quarters of the earth’s surface and provide most of its water supply. Oceans also produce over half of the oxygen that we breathe and absorb a large amount of carbon dioxide from our planet’s atmosphere. They transport heat from the equator to the poles, which regulates our climate and weather patterns. And oceans provide around one-third of the world’s food supply.²

Sharks—some of which are even considered apex predators (i.e., at the peak of all other species)—bring health and balance to our oceans by keeping populations of various crustaceans, fish, marine reptiles, and marine mammals at a normal, healthy level. They also play a key role in keeping our oceans free of disease by preying on sick and dying creatures and scavenging the carcasses of already deceased animals at sea, including those that wash into the oceans from rivers.

But when most people think about sharks, they do not think about the beneficial fish that keep our oceans clean. Instead, the creature in the movie Jaws comes to mind. Who would not be horrified at the thought of a monstrous fish lurking somewhere close by, possibly just a few feet away from an unsuspecting swimmer? Although this mental picture is usually exaggerated in people’s minds, the fact is that sharks have been known to attack—or, to be more specific, to bite people from time to time—usually doing so by mistake and often leaving the area immediately following the bite. But this one shark trait—their occasional tendency to launch attacks on humans—generates more attention and interest from the general public than any other aspect of their behavior.

In the writing of this book, I do not intend to portray any shark species in a negative way. I love sharks, and they really are some of the most misunderstood and mischaracterized creatures on the planet. As a result of this misinformation, people have attempted—throughout history and in many locations throughout the world—to rid the waters of sharks by the indiscriminate use of longlines and nets as well as through organized shark hunts. In the post-Jaws 1970s and 1980s, many recreational pier fishermen in the Carolinas possessed the attitude of the only good shark is a dead shark and would kill even young, harmless species such as Atlantic sharpnose and bonnetheads. During that period, I recall seeing fishermen bash the heads of hooked young sharks on pier railings and toss them on deck to rot in the sun—other sharks met a similarly gruesome fate, with fishermen just throwing them on the pier to slowly die. When possible, I would take those that didn’t get their heads bashed and toss them over the side, back into the ocean.

With time, however, this societal attitude has increasingly changed for the better, thanks in large part to advances in not only shark research but also in modes of sharing the latest scientific information with the public through magazine and journal articles, publications on the Internet, and creative documentaries. Sharks are finally starting to gain support from a sector of the public who sees them in a more positive and realistic light for what they truly are—a very necessary and vulnerable group of animals that play an invaluable role in our marine environment. I hope that those who read this book will not see a horror story within these pages but instead will become more aware of safer ways in which we, as humans, can share the sharks’ environment and learn something positive about their behavior. We should not fear sharks to the point of avoiding the water, nor should we choose to swim with, feed, or touch some of the bigger, more dangerous species to prove that they are naturally nonaggressive toward humans (even if this is usually true). All sharks, regardless of size, should be admired, appreciated, and respected for their beauty, for their survivability, for the important role that they play in the world, for their unpredictability, and for the capabilities they possess as wild apex predators.

Shark Fishing in the Carolinas

Sharks have historically been so plentiful in the Carolinas that established shark fishing businesses once flourished (until local and state governments implemented necessary stringent regulations for the protection of the species, making these business operations impractical). We have much to learn about shark reproduction habits; however, the fact remains that some species are vulnerable to extinction due to their slow growth rate, later-in-life sexual maturity, and tendency to bear only a few offspring at a time. According to Professor Frank J. Schwartz, a well-respected shark expert with the University of North Carolina (UNC) Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City:

From 1918 to 1922 Cape Lookout Beaufort Ocean Leather Corporation had a viable shark fishery with catches of sharks up to seven feet in length at a rate of 50–60 a day were average. The years 1936–1941 saw a small shark fishery activated in Morehead City and in its prime, there was a reported 3,000 catches of sharks over six feet long during a three-month season. [During the years] 1983–1985 a final small shark fishery longline operation emerged in Morehead City and ran with much success until it shut down.³

Sharks have also contributed heavily to fish catches hooked from boats, piers, and the surf in both Carolinas, with recorded landings dating back as far as 1874. After the 1975 release of Jaws, society spotlighted sharks to a greater extent in the public eye; thus, sharks became a more popular fishing target for laymen, serious hunters, and professional fishermen. Shark fishing clubs sprouted up along the East Coast, and some of these clubs fished Carolina waters for their trophies. The annual Poor Boy Shark Tournament at Hughes Marina in Shallotte, North Carolina, was popular from 1982 until its demise in 1996. During this event anywhere from six to twenty boats of experienced shark fishermen would head seaward, usually at night, to hunt sharks for three 24-hour fishing days. Fishermen caught hundreds of sharks of various species during the tournament’s heyday, with the largest being a thirteen-foot tiger shark that weighed 939 pounds.⁴

The Carolinas lay claim to several large shark catches that include a twelve-foot tiger shark hooked and released from the beach on Topsail Island, North Carolina, in 2016; a 421-pound state-record lemon shark taken from the Kure Beach Pier in North Carolina in 1978; and a 610-pound dusky shark landed from Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, in 1962. The greatest catch from the Carolinas, however, happened on June 14, 1964, when local shark fisherman Walter Maxwell landed a world-record tiger shark off the Cherry Grove Fishing Pier in South Carolina. Weighing in at 1,780 pounds, this shark measured almost fourteen feet in length and 103 inches in girth. The shark had to be weighed the morning after it was landed; therefore an estimated 10 percent of its actual weight was lost due to dehydration. Experts say that had someone weighed it when Maxwell had caught it, the shark would have tipped the scales at a ton. On the day before he caught this fish, Maxwell hooked but did not land an even bigger tiger shark off the same pier. According to Maxwell, the one that got away was long enough to have nearly overlapped the pier’s end. Jim Michie, another experienced shark fisherman and Maxwell’s fishing partner that day, estimated that the shark was around eighteen feet long. Both men say that they thought the shark weighed at least 2,500 pounds. Maxwell also landed the North Carolina state-record tiger shark in 1966 off the Yaupon Pier at Oak Island. This catch is now known as the YB Tiger, and a replica of the giant is on permanent display at the Yaupon Pier. Some sources inaccurately report the length of this state-record tiger shark, but I feel confident that my personal telephone conversation with Maxwell’s wife confirms the actual measurements of this great catch: YB Jaws, as people have also dubbed it, weighed in at 1,150 pounds, was twelve feet in length, and was seventy-seven inches in girth.⁵

On yet another occasion, Maxwell had his line hooked into a large 1,200-pound tiger shark when suddenly he witnessed the largest shark he had ever seen. The giant zeroed in on his hooked tiger shark and took a chunk of it that measured 36 inches across. From examining the size of the wound and the shape of the tooth impressions, Maxwell estimated that the attacker was most likely a great white shark in the 3,500-pound range.⁶

2 Summers of the Sharks

When Sharks Attack

Human existence as we know it depends largely on the survival of our sharks and the ecosystem in which they reside. With protections in place, and regulations limiting the hunting of some species and banning the taking of others, it seemed as though policymakers finally recognized the fact that we need sharks. These regulations on shark fishing have given this group of animals greater opportunity to thrive and replenish their populations as nature intended. Yet, despite growing awareness of sharks’ value and importance to the world, they still have yet to overcome one major hurdle—our instinctive human fear of the unknown, the unseen, and the dangerous. Fear is a hardwired survival mechanism and is triggered in potentially unsafe and threatening situations. The year 2015 was known as the summer of the shark. It was an especially unusual year for the North Carolina coast, where a series of severe shark bites took place, some occurring in locations where shark attacks had never before been reported. Media coverage of these shark attacks capitalized on people’s general fears, fueling public concern to the point that some people may have