Seven weeks after coming face to face — literally — with what he described as a great white shark while surfing off Kailua-Kona, Jared Willeford recently returned to the water at the surf spot known as Banyans.

“It was a little bit nerve-­wracking, but once I got to the exact spot it was actually pretty calming and peaceful,” he said. “I didn’t really feel any fear, it was just nice to get back in the ocean and catch a couple waves.”

Willeford, 38, paused, then added with a chuckle, “I did make sure I sat farther inside than anybody else. I used to love it when there was nobody else out. Now I like it when it’s crowded.”

The avid waterman — one of eight people in Hawaii known to have experienced too-close encounters with sharks in 2021 — was sitting on his surfboard Dec. 4 when a 15-foot shark lunged out of the water at him, its pointy snout smashing into his jaw, puncturing Willeford’s lower lip and knocking out one of his teeth. He said he pushed against the predator’s open jaws, raking his left forearm across its razor-­sharp teeth and ripping open a series of 4-inch-deep gashes.

The scars, stretching from below his elbow to his hand, have mostly healed but Willeford continues therapy to overcome the numbness and nerve damage in his lower left arm.

“I’m pretty much just breathing through the pain. It’s still really severe two months later,” he said last week.

Willeford’s encounter is the first known Hawaii shark bite case in recent decades to have involved a great white shark, according to 26 years of data compiled by the state Division of Aquatic Resources.

Shark bite numbers vary from year to year for no apparent reason, but over the past 10 years, there have been an average of almost nine incidents annually, according to DAR reports. During that same period, there were five fatalities statewide — all off the west or south coast of Maui — with the most recent occurring Dec. 8, 2020, when a surfer was killed by a 14-foot tiger shark at Honolua Bay.

Last year’s eight shark bite incidents occurred off four islands: three each off Maui and Hawaii island, with single cases off Oahu and Kauai. Surfers were involved in three of the incidents, swimmers in another three and a spearfisher and kiteboarder in the remaining two.

The latter two were classified by DAR as “provoked” incidents, which occur when a human initiates interaction with a shark in some way, such as harassing or trying to touch or feed sharks, or while engaged in fishing activities.

“Unprovoked” incidents are those that occur in the shark’s natural habitat without human provocation.

(Another case reported by news media but not included in the DAR list occurred Feb. 2 off Ukumehame, Maui, when a 10- to 13-foot shark chomped on a kayak, sinking it, with a man and his 15-year-old son aboard. Neither was injured.)

“It’s a typical Hawaii year as far as shark incidents are concerned, and we’re lucky that it stays that way,” said Kim Holland, a research professor with the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. “We have a typical shark incident rate of a handful a year … and it’s basically the continuation of the trend.

“What’s remarkable, really, is how few attacks there are, given the incredibly high number of people who use the ocean every day and the fact that we know that our shark populations are pretty healthy,” he said. “To me the continuing mystery is why we don’t have more — but I don’t want that to change.”

Maui in ‘sweet spot’

Surfers, tiger sharks and Maui are the most common denominators in recent shark bite incidents in the islands.

Maui by far was the most frequent locale of the 87 incidents reported by DAR from 2012 to 2021. Nearly 43% of the cases, a total of 37, took place in Valley Isle waters. The rest of the encounters were split among other islands: 19 off Oahu (22%); 17 off Hawaii island (19%); 12 off Kauai (14%); and two off Lanai (2%).

“Maui is surrounded by ideal tiger shark habitat,” said Holland, who has been involved in a years-long project to tag and track tiger sharks in Hawaii waters. “Tracking research has shown their favorite depth is from the shoreline to about 600 feet deep. The Maui Nui complex sits on a big plateau of exactly that depth, so there’s more of that depth in Maui Nui than there is in the whole of the rest of the Hawaiian Islands.

“In other words, Maui sits in the sweet spot as far as preferred habitat for tiger sharks.”

The species is believed to have been the culprit in at least 48% of Hawaii bite incidents over the past 10 years, according to DAR reports. A lesser number of cases have involved Galapagos, cookie cutter and requiem sharks, which include reef and sandbar sharks.

In 30% of the incidents, the shark species was unknown.

Surfers and bodyboarders were the victims of shark bites in 32 of the total incidents during that same period, or 37%, followed by swimmers and waders in 23 cases (26%); standup paddlers/kiteboarders in 13 (15%); snorkelers in 11 (13%); fishers/spearfishers in seven instances (8%); and a one-man canoe paddler in a single incident (1%).

Another key factor: Fifty-­two of the 87 incidents over the 10-year stretch, or 60%, occurred in turbid or muddy water.

“Generally we tend to have a higher incidence of interactions with sharks in turbid water because they can’t see you as well and you can’t see them as well, and especially for tiger sharks, they generally hunt turtles, so they’re looking for something floating on the surface,” said DAR aquatic biologist Stacia Marcoux.

Florida No. 1 in cases

After three consecutive years of declines, the number of shark bites worldwide picked up in 2021, with a total of 73 unprovoked incidents, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, which released its annual summary last week. The data included 39 provoked shark bites and nine unprovoked fatalities, including the lone U.S. death off California.

The 73 unprovoked bites in 2021 “aligns with the five-year global average of 72 annually but is in stark contrast to the 52 confirmed bites recorded in 2020, which were the lowest documented in over a decade,” the report said. ISAF manager Tyler Bowling attributed the far lower count in 2020 to beach closures associated with COVID-19 restrictions.

“Shark bites dropped drastically in 2020 due to the pandemic. This past year was much more typical, with average bite numbers from an assortment of species and fatalities from white sharks, bull sharks and tiger sharks,” Bowling said in a news release.

Hawaii shark bites also declined in 2020, to six from 14 in 2019, according to DAR. (Four of the 2019 cases involved “swim with sharks” tours off Haleiwa, including three Galapagos shark bite cases stemming from a single tour; all four were classified by DAR as provoked incidents.)

In 2018, there were only three Hawaii shark bite incidents, illustrating the year-to-year fluctuations.

Hawaii’s six unprovoked shark bite cases in 2021 were well short of the 28 incidents reported off Florida. The Sunshine State has topped the global charts in the number of shark bites for decades, the ISAF report said, and accounted for 60% of the U.S. total last year and 38% of unprovoked bites worldwide.

South Carolina was third behind Hawaii in U.S. shark bites with four, followed by North Carolina and California (three each), Georgia (two) and a single incident off Maryland.

The 47 U.S. incidents represented 64% of global cases last year, the report said.

Australia ranked second globally with 12 unprovoked shark bite incidents in 2021, including three fatalites, followed by Brazil, New Zealand and South Africa, each with three cases and a single death. New Caledonia reported two cases, both fatalities, and Canada, Ecuador and St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean had one incident each.

The ISAF said reporting of shark bites “remains spotty,” especially with first responders preoccupied with the pandemic. In any event, there’s no reason for alarm over the latest data.

“Short-term trends still show both fatal and non-fatal bites to be decreasing,” the report said. “The total number of unprovoked shark bites worldwide is extremely low, given the number of people participating in aquatic recreation each year.”

A great white mystery

Willeford’s apparent encounter with a great white shark off Kailua-Kona took place in 4 to 6 feet of water. Social media posts a few days before the incident reported a great white prowling off the Kona coast.

Although it’s long been known that white sharks are present in the ocean around Hawaii, both Holland and Marcoux said it’s highly unusual for the fearsome predators to appear in nearshore waters and to linger unless drawn in by a whale carcass or other easy food source.

“It’s very unusual to encounter a white shark in the state of Hawaii. They are known to travel to Hawaii, especially during winter when the humpback whales are here,” Marcoux said. “There are probably more of them here than are observed, mostly because they are farther off from shore.”

Holland explained that white shark behavior in Hawaii is still largely a mystery.

“Whether or not there’s a pattern to white shark visits to the islands, we don’t have enough information to know,” he said. “We don’t even know if they’re feeding. One of the things about sharks is that they are extremely beautifully designed to swim through the water and can travel a lot of distance without necessarily feeding.”

Considering Willeford’s knowledge of the ocean as a kayak fisherman and sportsman, “there’s no reason to believe it wasn’t a white shark,” Holland added.

For his part, Willeford has vivid recall of the Dec. 4 incident, which occurred around dusk.

“I had just caught a really good wave and there was still some light, so I figured I’d try to catch one more wave,” Willeford said. “I was just sitting there bobbing, and there were some fireworks going off and I was gazing up at those and looked down, and there was a huge shark with its mouth open coming straight for me. I was just in shock that it was even happening.”

The shark hit him “square in the face” and knocked Willeford off his board. He thinks the impact against the shark’s sensitive snout may have momentarily stunned the predator and kept it from clamping down on its human prey. Willeford said he used his arm and a knee to push off from the beast.

“I hit the reef immediately and just kind of laid there, waiting for whole shark to pass over. It blocked out the light, it was so wide. It was 15-foot-plus for sure, and it kept going and going and it finally passed, and I pushed off the reef and came up.”

Willeford made it to shore with the help of a female surfer, who used her board leash as a tourniquet to lessen blood loss.

Even before last month’s incident, sharks were never far from his mind, considering how much time he spends in the ocean. Willeford said he’s often been tailed by sharks while fishing, and tigers have rammed his kayak “many times.” He said he’s even spotted great whites before — “from a distance.”

“I’m always gonna love the ocean. I don’t blame the shark at all, of course. It was hungry and there I am, and I looked like food. It messed me up real good, but I still have my life.” (A friend of Willeford’s set up a fundraising page on gofundme.com to help with his sizeable medical bills.)

He said he would hate to think of anyone avoiding the ocean because of his harrowing experience.

Marcoux offered some common-sense tips for lessening the risk of an unwanted shark encounter.

“To be shark smart, respect that you’re in their habitat; this is their world,” she said. “And when the water is clearer you’re able to see things in the water and things in the water are able to see you. And that doesn’t just go for sharks, that goes for other inhabitants in the ocean as well.

“And it’s always a good idea when recreating in the ocean to bring someone with you. It’s good to have a buddy.”

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Shark incidents in Hawaii 2021

>> Jan. 2: Anaehoomalu, Hawaii island. A 68-year-old female swimmer was bitten on the lower right leg by an unknown species in clear water about 100 yards from shore.

>> Jan. 22: Kahekili Beach, Kaanapali, Maui. A 73-year-old male swimmer was bitten on the lower right leg by an 8- to 10-foot tiger shark in turbid water about 80 to 100 yards from shore.

>> Feb. 6: Waiokapua Bay, Kauai. A 12- to 14-foot tiger shark bit the nose of a surfboard in clear water about 100 yards from shore.

>> April 20: Kukio Bay, Hawaii island. A 57-year-old female swimmer was bitten on the lower right left by an 8- to 10-foot tiger shark in clear water about 500 yards from shore.

>> May 3: North Beach, Kaneohe, Oahu. A 14-year-old male surfer was bitten on the lower left leg by a 5- to 6-foot requiem shark in clear water about 10 yards from shore.

>> May 15: Kanaha, Maui. A 35-year-old male kiteboarder was bitten on the lower back/upper back thigh by a 5- to 8-foot tiger shark in turbid water about 400 to 500 yards from shore.

>> Nov. 7: Mala Wharf, Lahaina, Maui. A 27-year-old female spearfisher was bitten on the upper right thigh by a 4- to 6-foot requiem shark in turbid water about 200 yards from shore.

>> Dec. 4: Banyans, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii island. A 38-year-old male surfer suffered lower left arm injuries from a 15-foot great white shark in turbid water about 130 yards from shore.

Source: Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources

A look at shark bites in Ha… by Honolulu Star-Advertiser