Diver Encounters Great White near Kona

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acooper

Contributor
Messages
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Location
Waikoloa, Hawaii, United States
# of dives
100 - 199
Three days after we dove the site, a great white shark attacks a diver at the same site. The man was skin diving and spear fishing at O’oma, what the surfers call Pine Trees. The diver was not injured, the shark attempted to steal his catch and from the story might have escalated the attack if the diver had not gotten out of the water. Sounds like there were some photos taken of the shark from shore, but none seem to have surfaced yet.

The story give a lot of details of the encounter...
Diver encounters great white shark off Kona shore | Hawaii 24/7


Interestingly, the diver described the shark as injured, perhaps a reason the shark was attempting to grab an easy meal on the reef instead of the usual pelagic prey?
 
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More prudent to describe this as an attack on a spear-fisher, than on a "diver".

Wounding evident on many sharks often originates from their mating rituals (quite violent). It's possible that this was a pregnant female shark (showing signs of previous/recent mating).

'She' could have been sourcing an easy meal - in order to maintain growth of her babies or recuperate weight following pregnancy or mating.

Alternatively, some 'major' shark species are also suspected of attacking/threatening 'competitors' in order to cleanse a birthing area of other predators (threat to her offspring) and give the best chance to younger sharks in a competitive hunting environment.
 
It kinda reads as though he attacked it, trying to retrieve his fish or gear, then it turned it's attention towards him. Gotta be an unexpected scare/thrill no matter what. Edit: I just now realized this was Saturday. We did our first dive at Golden Arches, left shortly before noon, there was a spearo or two in the area, may have been him (the google map they show had it right there, but spearfisherman often work the point closer to the airport so it could very well have been someone else). Water was flat and clear, my DM made a note of how good the viz was when he came up. If the water was dirty on the surface, it was fish parts or ashes, we could see coral heads looking down on the reef from the boat so it was quite clear. Had an OW student on the dive, would've been a memorable first training dive for her if we'd seen it.
 
I agree with Andy's speculation -- the shark was after the fish, not the diver.
 
Mark Barville is a highly creditable source, but I'd like a picture, or a tooth, or a bite mark, or some other corroboration that it was a GWS, whose presence is unlikely. Excitement of this sort can result in miss-identification by the best of us.
 
I'd trust the ID. I've heard reports of fishermen seeing them off South Point for years. Had a friend freediving off Kona Paradise say he looked over and saw the back 15 feet or so of a big shark in the distance, he thought it a young whale shark, swimming over by his wife, the wife screamed to their boat and he followed, she swore it was a great white with white on the underside with a pointy snout, he called up someone just to prove her wrong and they said we're in the Great White's range, although it's not common now that there are fewer monk seals. No telling if it was a great white, but I'd trust her description. In recent years they've had divers photograph them on Oahu and at Molokini, I think the shark videoed off Oahu a couple months back was determined to be a great white but I'm not sure.

Here's an interesting article about a shark tagged in the Farallones who's pop up tag popped up here: Great white sharks migrate thousands of miles across the sea, new study finds : 1/02 It's got a little more info on the sharks and Hawaii.
 
Have to agree with Steve on the descriptions of the clarity around that area lately... Excellent. It was great Thursday for us. Several friends/divers report great viz along the coast all weekend. A detail that does not check in the story.
 
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