Shark attack kills surfer in California
A man was killed in a shark attack as he was surfing at a state beach in Northern California on Saturday, authorities said.
The man, Ben Kelly, 26, was about 100 yards from shore at Manresa State Beach near Santa Cruz when he was attacked around 1:30 p.m., the California Department of Parks and Recreation said Sunday.
The beach, at the northern end of Monterey Bay, had been closed to the public between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. as part of an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. While the beach was closed, people were allowed in the water for “active aquatic recreation,” the parks department said.
Because of the attack, the beach has been closed to the public until Thursday, and signs warning beachgoers about the attack have been posted at access points.
Kelly, a surfboard maker, lived in Santa Cruz with his wife, Katie Kelly. He was “a self-taught shaper” of surfboards who designed his first board when he was a child, according to a biography on the website of his business, Ben Kelly Surfboards. He took pride in sanding surfboards by hand to the specifications of his customers.
“I love the process of creating: taking something raw and formless and making it into something both functional and aesthetic,” Kelly said on his website.
The species of shark that attacked Kelly is unknown, the Department of Parks and Recreation said in a statement.
“Our best guess is that it was probably a white shark,” Simon R. Thorrold, a senior scientist in the biology department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts, said in an interview.
“White sharks are big enough and their teeth are so sharp that even a halfhearted attempt will cause significant injuries,” he said.
Shark attacks are rare, but it is not unusual for them to occur close to shore, Thorrold said. The Florida Museum in Gainesville, Florida, which keeps track of shark attacks worldwide, documented 64 unprovoked shark attacks and 40 provoked attacks last year. That was down slightly from the average of 82 annual unprovoked attacks for the four-year period from 2014-18.
“Hippos kill way more people every year than sharks do,” Thorrold said.
While sharks prefer not to eat humans, surfers can find themselves in danger because the silhouette of a surfboard with a surfer on top, as seen by a shark underwater, can resemble a seal, Thorrold said.
“Seals are part of their natural prey,” Thorrold said. “It is not unreasonable to think that the shark thinks it is a seal and gets to the surfer and realizes pretty quickly it does not want to eat it. By that time, the shark has done enough damage to the human that it can end in tragedy.”
Kelly’s family could not be reached Sunday.
On his Instagram account, he wrote that he was passionate about surfing and making surfboards. His motto was: “You dream it, I make it.”
“What started as a way to fuel my own surfing passion has now become a way to stoke out my fellow surfers, and that is truly fulfilling to me,” Kelly wrote. “You should feel stoked each time you enter the water and comfortable on your own board.”
