Tuesday, Sep. 01, 2009
Fisherman snaps photo of great white shark killing seal near Cambria
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closeA 13-foot long great white shark bit a harbor seal in half just in front of his small boat off Cambria on Friday, a Templeton man reports.
Jim McKell used a cellular phone to capture images of the shark’s dorsal and tail fins and what was left of the seal.
McKell said Tuesday he, Jake Thomas of San Miguel and James McKell of Templeton went out from Leffingwell Landing at the north end of Moonstone Beach on Friday morning. They headed for a spot off Marine Terrace on the south end of Cambria, where they scuba dived and caught their limit of rock fish.
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Poll:Do shark sightings make you more wary of going into the ocean?
They climbed back in the Zodiac inflatable boat and headed back for Leffingwell when, at about 10 a.m., they reached a point about a half-mile south of Moonstone Beach and a quarter mile offshore, near the kelp beds, Jim McKell said.
That’s when “this triangle-shaped head popped out of the water,” he said, “thrashing the seal right in front of the boat … it took half of the seal, left the other half floating.”
“My zodiac’s 13 feet,” he said. “The shark appeared a little bit bigger. I’ll never forget it the rest of my life. It was crazy.”
McKell reported the encounter to the Morro Bay Harbor Patrol on Monday.
Eric Endersby, harbor operations manager, confirmed the report, and said there is “not much we can do with it” when the report comes in days after the sighting. “The animal could be in San Franciso by now,” he said.
As a general rule, Endersby would advise people venturing into the ocean to “be aware of your surroundings,” he said. “If you see birds, dolphins, seals,” those are signs predators, too, might be around, “like if you see a baby bear in the woods, the mother might be around.”
It’s not that rare to see great white sharks, especially in the fall, off the Central California Coast, Endersby said, adding that commercial fishermen see them on a “fairly regular basis.”
The most recent local shark warning was posted in Cayucos after a sighting was reported July 27.
— Bert Etling
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