A Christmas Eve shark assault in central California this previous December killed a 42-year-old bodyboarder, the Related Press reported.
Tomas Abraham Butterfield was bodyboarding at Morro Bay on 24 December when he was attacked by what officers describe was an awesome white shark.
The coroner’s report discovered that the Sacramento man, who was visiting his mom and brother within the space, was bitten within the head, chest and shoulder and in the end died from “problems of a number of penetrating blunt power traumatic accidents,” The Tribune of San Luis Obispo County reported Tuesday.
The Tribune went on to notice {that a} piece of the shark’s tooth was later recovered from the person’s physique, citing a report from a sheriff’s detective, which was amongst a trove of paperwork launched to the paper underneath a public information request.
Mr Butterfield was pulled from the waves when a surfer on the California seashore seen the person mendacity face down within the wake, his bodyboard nonetheless hooked up. He died on the scene.
Although no particulars have been launched in regards to the measurement of the shark that fatally wounded the person, consultant from the California Division of Fish and Wildlife, who assisted within the investigation, famous within the coroner’s report that the species was confirmed to be an awesome white shark by DNA samples.
Chunk marks on the person’s physique have been as giant as 16in, in accordance with the detective’s report, cited by the AP.
On the time of the assault, the LA Instances reported that, although the native inhabitants of nice white sharks off the coast of California had boomed lately, due to a constant lion and elephant seal inhabitants, encounters between the sharks and people remained uncommon.
Christopher Lowe, a professor of marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at California State Lengthy Seaside, informed the newspaper that “you will have a greater likelihood of profitable the lottery” than being attacked by a shark.
Mr Butterfield’s loss of life from an awesome white shark makes him the primary to succumb to the species in 18 years within the space.
His assault additionally marked the one deadly shark assault documented within the US in 2021. Because the Fifties, the California Fish and Wildlife have recorded 199 shark encounters within the state, with solely 14 fatalities.