VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — A body boarder bled to death Friday after a shark bit off his leg and a nearby surfer pulled him to shore and called for help, authorities said.
The 20-year-old University of California, Santa Barbara student was attacked off a Central California beach between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., prompting the closure of three beaches through the weekend, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told the Lompoc Record.
A friend who was on a surf board brought the man to shore at Surf Beach but the victim bled to death, Brown said. His identity was not immediately released but he was from Orange County, the sheriff said.
Authorities could not immediately determine what kind of shark attacked the student.
Surf Beach — which is 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles — is on the property of Vandenberg Air Force Base but is open to the public. Vandenberg closed Surf Beach and adjoining Wall and Minuteman beaches for 72 hours.
There have been nearly 100 shark attacks in California since the 1920s, including a dozen that were fatal, according to the California Department of Fish and Game. But attacks have remained relatively rare even as the population of swimmers, divers and surfers sharing the waters has soared.
The last shark attack on Surf beach was in 2008, when a shark believed to be a great white bit a surfer’s board. The surfer was not harmed.
The last fatal attack in California was in 2008, when triathlete David Martin, 66, bled to death after a great white shark bit his legs as he practiced with friends about 150 yards off of a San Diego County beach.
Randy Fry, 50, died from a great white attack in 2004 while diving off the coast of Mendocino, north of San Francisco Bay.
In 2003, a great white shark killed Deborah Franzman, 50, as she swam at Avila Beach, about 30 miles north of Vandenberg.
Sharks are a protected species in California and cannot be fished.
Many attacks are attributed to great white sharks, which can grow to 21 feet long. They live in the cold waters of Northern California and are rarer in Central and Southern California, although they do visit there to give birth.
Authorities have issued several warnings this year after great white shark sightings up and down the California coast.
Juvenile sharks eat fish, rays and other sealife while the adults also eat seals and sea lions — which can pose a problem for oceangoers, especially if they venture near marine mammal colonies.
The California Department of Fish and Game said sharks sometimes mistake people for seals or sea lions when swimmers wear a wetsuit and fins or lay on a surfboard.