Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias), Credit: Wikipedia
While the local Chamber of Commerce doesn’t really tout this feature, Pacific Grove, California is the world leader for a town or city with the most number of people killed by Great White sharks.
1952: December 7
Swimmer Barry Wilson was savagely bitten by a Great White shark less than 100 feet from Lover’s Point beach, a protected cove and popular family attraction. The shark was estimated at some 15 feet long. This is also California’s first recorded white shark fatality. Notably, Barry was inside the kelp forest.
1981: December 19
Surfer Lou Boren was bitten and killed by a Great White shark at Asilomar Beach, a popular surfing and picnic beach on the open ocean. The shark was estimated at some 17-19 feet long.
Asilomar Beach, Credit: Teresa Hanafin
So of the 35 deaths attributed to Great White Sharks along continental North America – two occurred in Pacific Grove. (1)
As far as we can determine – no other town in the world has had more than one person killed by a Great White shark. (And it seems that December might be a good time to try hiking instead.)
This is possibly misleading as some Counties or Boroughs may equal or exceed this. For example, two people were killed by a large shark in July 1916 within minutes of each other near New Jersey’s Matawan Borough – some 11 miles from the ocean ! (Though this may have been a Bull Shark – which is under appreciated as a terror.)
So as far as we can find out – more people have been killed by Great White Sharks in Pacific Grove than any other town in the world. (I write “in” because Pacific Grove is rather unusual in actually owning the underwater “land” where both attacks occurred.)
For more information, see — http://www.jawshark.com/great_white_shark_news_articles_us.html
Survived Attacks: There are more divers and surfers who have been attacked and lived. See — http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~rvilla/attack.html
Expert goes to extreme to portray great white sharks in positive light
.
- This does not include the harm to the town caused by Chamber of Commerce head Mo Ammar – who, despite popular opinion, is NOT technically a Great White Shark.
(Note from the editor: This note is SPAM of course, but I laughed out loud at the thought of losing 10 pounds “naturally” due to the subject of the article – White Sharks. So I left it in for your amusement.)
There are many easy-to-do dishes that supply tons of health and fat loss benefits. Drink a lot of water all day- 6-8 glasses of water may help detoxify the body. Do not turn for the television and sink into the couch following dinner.
It’s got to be Australia now.
Thanks Kathy, You are right Australia has a lot of deaths due to Great White Sharks . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_shark_attacks_in_Australia
as does South Africa.
However, (never been there yet) I suspect Australia is a slightly bigger place than a “Town.”
Thank you posting this I was born and raised in Monterey CA This bay is dangerous even now. I now northern Nevada. I don’t miss much except running Del Monte Beach and the path in Pacific Grove. One thing I would NEVER do is go into that water. I’ve seen three great whites jump out on different occasions hunting seals. Seals running on shore getting away from then and they can be aggressive too. My parents just got back from Monterey dad still does plumbing down there. They were at that beach four days ago and were chased up in the dune area on Del Monte by a large seal in fear.