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Great white strikes off coast of southern California

A sign on a locked gate prohibiting water activity sits above Tide Beach after a shark attack in Solana Beach, California, on Friday. A shark attacked and killed a swimmer who was training in the ocean off San Diego County with a group of triathletes. The shark is believed to have been a great white between 3.7m and 5m long. PHOTO: AP

An apparent great white shark attacked and killed a 66-year-old man on Friday as he swam with a local triathlon club at a popular beach near San Diego in California, local officials said.

A friend identified the victim as Dave Martin, a retired veterinarian who had lived in the area since 1970. Officials said he had been swimming together with eight fellow members of the triathlon club at the time.

The rare attack took place just after sunrise at Solana Beach north of San Diego and some 200km south of Los Angeles.

The shark was “almost certainly” an adult great white shark, said Richard Rosenblatt with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In a press conference, Solana Beach Mayor Joe Kellejean said residents were “shocked and dismayed” at the incident.

“I want to implore everybody to please stay out of the water,” he said.

Deputy Fire chief Dismas Abelman said the swimmers, who had all been wearing full wet suits, were pulling Martin out of the ocean when help arrived.

“The victim was dead from an attack from a large marine animal, a shark attack,” he said.

“It was typical great white shark behavior to attack from below, make a bite and then draw away,” said Rosenblatt, adding that the animal normally feasts on sea mammals like seals.

He described Martin’s wounds as “quite clean and massive” and believes the shark measured between 3.7m and 5m long.

Authorities closed off part of the beach while helicopters searched for the shark, but Rosenblatt said the chances of finding it were “pretty slim.”

Shark attacks along California’s southern coast are rare. The last shark fatality in the San Diego area may have been in April 1994, when a woman’s disfigured body was washed ashore with evidence of shark bites. The most recent death before that was in 1959.
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