Judging by the spacing of the tooth
marks on a harbor seal found last Thursday at Ocean Shores beach, it
was attacked by a great white shark about 18 feet long, said
Washington Fish and Wildlife Authority spokesman Craig Bartlett
February 26, 2015
OCEAN SHORES, Wash. — State
authorities are warning Pacific Coast residents that an estimated
18-foot-long great white shark is swimming off the Washington coast
and feeding on harbour seals.
The warning comes after the Department
of Fish and Wildlife retrieved the body of a seal last Thursday on a
beach near Ocean Shores — neatly bitten in half.
A necropsy determined on Tuesday that
the likely predator was a great white shark and judging by the
spacing of the teeth marks it is about 18 feet long, said spokesman
Craig Bartlett.
Related
The seal was a female that weighed more
than 200 pounds and whose hindquarters were missing. “It was a
clean bite right below the rib cage,” Bartlett said.
Its stomach was filled with smelt,
indicating the seal had been attacked close to shore where smelt
swim.
“That would be kind of terrifying,”
Edith Laurent said. “It would be terrifying out there to have a
shark come in.”
Only two shark attacks on humans have
been documented in Washington state — one in the 1830s and one in
1989. The attacks weren’t fatal, Bartlett said.
As a precaution the department has
notified other agencies of the presence of the great white shark,
including the Coast Guard, state parks, and local governments and
tribes on the coast.
The necropsy was performed by the
department in consultation with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration shark expert in California.
(source: NP)
