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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, January 4, 2002

Tiger sharks, reef sharks involved in recent attacks

By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Editor

Although tiger sharks are considered the most dangerous of the 40 shark species common to Hawaiian waters, reef sharks were involved in the three reported shark incidents last year.

A 6- to 7-foot tiger shark is believed to have been responsible for Tuesday's attack at a popular snorkeling beach in Olowalu on Maui. Tommy Holmes, 35, of Los Angeles, suffered bite wounds on his buttocks and was treated at Maui Memorial Medical Center.

Holmes was snorkeling with his girlfriend, observing a large group of sea turtles about 100 yards from shore, when the attack occurred.

About six weeks earlier, at a surfing spot north of Kapalua known as Ironwoods, a 5-foot reef shark took a chunk out of 13-year-old Matty Schweitzer's surfboard as he was kicking out of a wave. The boy, an eighth-grader at Sacred Hearts School in Lahaina, said yesterday that he felt a bump and wiped out, but didn't realize a shark had bitten the rail of his surfboard until he cut his hand on a semicircular gouge in the board.

The boy's father is world champion windsurfer Matt Schweitzer, who has a few shark tales of his own. The elder Schweitzer said a 12-foot-plus great white shark once stalked him while he was windsurfing off South Africa, and a year and a half ago he sought safety on land after being harassed by an aggressive 10-foot tiger shark while diving off Kahana.

Randy Honebrink of the state Shark Task Force said tooth impressions on the boy's surfboard enabled experts to determine the size and type of shark.

The young Schweitzer's previously unpublicized shark encounter was similar to two events earlier in the year, Honebrink said.

In April, a 3-foot white-tip shark nipped a surfer's hand off 'Ewa Beach. In March, a 5-foot reef shark injured a bodyboarder's hand at Sandy Beach. Neither victim was seriously hurt.

The odds of a shark attack in Hawai'i remain low. Honebrink said there are an average of three or four shark incidents a year. The last confirmed fatal shark attack in the Islands occurred in 1992, according to the International Shark Attack File.

From 1990 to 2000, there were 35 shark attacks in Hawai'i, two of them fatal. By comparison, there were 33 shark attacks in California over the same period, 36 in Australia, 69 in South Africa and 224 in Florida.