Shark Attacks Along Texas Coast Are 'Normal'

August 6, 2004

Release from: Pam Easton
Associated Press

HOUSTON — Three shark attacks off the Texas coast in the past two months are unusual but don't mean there are more sharks than normal along the beach or that they are getting bolder, marine biologists and other experts say.

"The public needs to understand it is just normal behavior and they are the ones that need to be more cautious," said Jan Culbertson, a marine biologist with the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife. "Right now, there is a lot of the bait in the water. The fishing has picked up tremendously. So the sharks are in there looking for the fish, just like we are."

The Texas coast rarely has as many as three attacks, but it isn't unprecedented. The International Shark Attack File, which has gathered such data worldwide for decades, lists 1990 as the last year Texas had three attacks. Most years there are one, two, or none. Texas wildlife officials say there have been no fatalities since the 1960s.

Florida leads the nation in shark attacks, according to the ISAF, often logging two to three dozen a year. Other Gulf coast states have fewer than Texas.

But on July 26 a shark bit an 11-year-old boy, and the next day another shark bit a 19-year-old woman in Galveston, about 45 miles north of the first attack. The first attack of the summer was also in Galveston and occurred June 1, leaving a boy injured.

The three attacks in shallow water in or near the resort city of Galveston caused some people to wonder whether something out of the ordinary was happening.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesman Tom Harvey agreed the incidents' timing was unusual, "but what we're seeing is probably more of a media frenzy than a shark-feeding frenzy."

All three of the attacks this summer have occurred when youngsters were wading or swimming near a school of fish.