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06-30-2005, 11:13 AM
One rare scare
By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
Published June 30, 2005
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EGMONT KEY - Mary Mathias had given up looking for fish.
It was late Tuesday afternoon and she had turned to watching pelicans on a dock at the Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge at the mouth of Tampa Bay.
Just as she set down her fishing pole and dangled her legs over the side, a large shape appeared in the water and started coming straight toward her.
"I really wasn't worried," said Mathias, a junior at Eckerd College who works at the 328-acre refuge as an intern with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. "I took a picture of the fin."
Then, suddenly, in a week when sharks have attacked two tourists off Panhandle beaches, Mathias had her own too-close-for-comfort encounter.
"It leaped out of the water about 5 feet away from me. I pulled my feet up really fast and it started snapping its jaws. I was so scared I forgot to take my finger off the button and just kept clicking."
Mathias stood on the dock, frozen with fear, and watched the 6-foot shark thrashing about so close to her she got wet from the splashing.
"I was afraid to head in," Mathias said. "I thought it would follow me."
But after a few minutes, the shark stopped moving. Then it picked its head up, rolled over on its back, and lay motionless in the water.
As it turns out, the blacktip shark was not attacking Mathias, a shark expert said. It likely was in its death throes from a recent Red Tide outbreak and probably wasn't even aware she was a few feet away, said Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory.
"Absolutely in no way does this reflect attack or aggressive behavior," he said. "My guess is this animal is having severe problems and she (Mathias) just happened to be in the area and caught it on film. Her presence there had nothing to do with it. This species doesn't go after large prey."
After the shark stopped moving, Mathias ran down the pier and looked at the pictures on her digital camera.
"I couldn't believe how close it was," she said. "The shark was beautiful, but I'm really sad it died. It was like a rabid animal." The refuge where Mathias works and the adjacent state park just west of Fort De Soto Park are accessible only by boat.
The shark was a mature blacktip, said Hueter, a healthy looking fish, except for its extremely unusual behavior.
Blacktips are common in coastal waters, he said. They feed on small fish and are less likely to target people. The species is responsible for roughly 16 percent of the attacks in Florida waters.
Both Mathias and the shark, Hueter said, were probably victims of bad timing.
During late spring and early summer, many sharks instinctively move into shallow water to give birth. That's probably what brought the shark into the bay.
But recent outbreaks of Red Tide in the area trapped some sharks before they could escape to the open gulf.
"This animal was clearly suffering some behavioral problems consistent with Red Tide," Hueter said. "We know sharks can be killed by Red Tide if they're trapped in it."
A photo of the shark with its jaws open, Hueter said, is uncharacteristic for blacktips.
That Mathias was there to watch the shark in its death throes was purely a coincidence.
"This is a sharky area in the summertime," Hueter said. "And she just happened to witness something that's very rare."
http://www.stpetetimes.com/2005/06/30/images/large/B_1_sharkpier_217595_0630.jpg
http://www.stpetetimes.com/2005/06/30/images/large/B_1_1b4photog_217591_0630.jpg
By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
Published June 30, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EGMONT KEY - Mary Mathias had given up looking for fish.
It was late Tuesday afternoon and she had turned to watching pelicans on a dock at the Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge at the mouth of Tampa Bay.
Just as she set down her fishing pole and dangled her legs over the side, a large shape appeared in the water and started coming straight toward her.
"I really wasn't worried," said Mathias, a junior at Eckerd College who works at the 328-acre refuge as an intern with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. "I took a picture of the fin."
Then, suddenly, in a week when sharks have attacked two tourists off Panhandle beaches, Mathias had her own too-close-for-comfort encounter.
"It leaped out of the water about 5 feet away from me. I pulled my feet up really fast and it started snapping its jaws. I was so scared I forgot to take my finger off the button and just kept clicking."
Mathias stood on the dock, frozen with fear, and watched the 6-foot shark thrashing about so close to her she got wet from the splashing.
"I was afraid to head in," Mathias said. "I thought it would follow me."
But after a few minutes, the shark stopped moving. Then it picked its head up, rolled over on its back, and lay motionless in the water.
As it turns out, the blacktip shark was not attacking Mathias, a shark expert said. It likely was in its death throes from a recent Red Tide outbreak and probably wasn't even aware she was a few feet away, said Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory.
"Absolutely in no way does this reflect attack or aggressive behavior," he said. "My guess is this animal is having severe problems and she (Mathias) just happened to be in the area and caught it on film. Her presence there had nothing to do with it. This species doesn't go after large prey."
After the shark stopped moving, Mathias ran down the pier and looked at the pictures on her digital camera.
"I couldn't believe how close it was," she said. "The shark was beautiful, but I'm really sad it died. It was like a rabid animal." The refuge where Mathias works and the adjacent state park just west of Fort De Soto Park are accessible only by boat.
The shark was a mature blacktip, said Hueter, a healthy looking fish, except for its extremely unusual behavior.
Blacktips are common in coastal waters, he said. They feed on small fish and are less likely to target people. The species is responsible for roughly 16 percent of the attacks in Florida waters.
Both Mathias and the shark, Hueter said, were probably victims of bad timing.
During late spring and early summer, many sharks instinctively move into shallow water to give birth. That's probably what brought the shark into the bay.
But recent outbreaks of Red Tide in the area trapped some sharks before they could escape to the open gulf.
"This animal was clearly suffering some behavioral problems consistent with Red Tide," Hueter said. "We know sharks can be killed by Red Tide if they're trapped in it."
A photo of the shark with its jaws open, Hueter said, is uncharacteristic for blacktips.
That Mathias was there to watch the shark in its death throes was purely a coincidence.
"This is a sharky area in the summertime," Hueter said. "And she just happened to witness something that's very rare."
http://www.stpetetimes.com/2005/06/30/images/large/B_1_sharkpier_217595_0630.jpg
http://www.stpetetimes.com/2005/06/30/images/large/B_1_1b4photog_217591_0630.jpg