Shark in fatal attack identified as a great white

After conferring with a shark expert, Santa Barbara County coroner's officials today identified the shark that killed 19-year-old college student Lucas Ransom as a great white.

Ralph Collier, president of the Shark Research Committee, determined that the UC Santa Barbara junior was killed by a great white shark measuring 17 to 18 feet long and weighing 4,000 pounds. Ransom was attacked as he surfed with a friend Friday on a beach near Lompoc.

Collier's finding is based on witness accounts, Ransom's wound and a gaping, foot-wide bite mark left in his bodyboard, coroner's officials said. Authorities also said that they had recovered fragments of a shark's tooth.

Collier is a well-known shark expert and author of "Shark Attacks of the 20th Century." He said there have been only 12 authenticated fatal shark attacks along the West Coast since the 1950s.

Ransom's family is planning a memorial and paddle-out to the ocean Thursday to honor their son.

-- Catherine Saillant

Comments

[donfitness]

They should take Richard Dreyfus with them.

[Michael]

I think that is an awesome way to honor a surfer! I hope the surf is good for the people participating!

[Quint]

They're gonna need a bigger boat.

[Tom]

I was a lifeguard. I suspect there are far more fatal shark attacks than reported.

"Sudden drownings" away from shore are common, and bodies are not always recovered. If nobody sees a fin, that is what gets written down.

People's feet extend 5 feet below the surface so even a very large shark could take someone down without showing a fin on the surface.

Sharks do not chew, they swallow whole. So I suspect some of those never-recovered "drowning" victims were just eaten.

[CaliPHOBE]

The kid is dead; what difference does it make if it was a great white or a guppy?

[lisa]

Great Whites are very common on our coast rule of thumb is if you see seals around you can assume Great Whites are around it's their favorite eats.

[John]

I'm tired of friends who mean well warning me about the dangers of surfing and getting eaten by a shark. The stats are still in favor of getting run over in the beach parking lot rather than death by a shark.

[voiceofreason]

it matters cause the shark is still out there, so people would like to know whats swimming off their coast and biting people, and as for the "sudden drownings theory", i highly doubt it, if you know anything about sharks youd know they almost always bite once and let their prey bleed out and die to avoid injury, so people that go under and dont come up are far more likely to be the result of an underwater current, not to mention all the blood in the water people would notice in the event of an actual shark attack

[Chris Miss]

They're going to paddle-out, eh? Isn't that a little risky? That's the shark's domain.

[hugo]

i have surfed since i was 7, over 35 years, around the world and have never seen a shark. my biggest injuries have been with reefs and large rocks, surfing is safe, lets not get this confused

[Kate]

@voice: Newsflash! There are great whites in California waters. Not rocket science, all in all.

[Dee]

Can't stop thinking about that boy. He seemed like such a great kid and he just thought he was gonna have a great morning of surfing and then go on to class and the rest of his life. The utter randomness of life just shakes me to the core.

[Bad Kitty No Milk Tonight]

The scientists have been saying for years that bodyboarding is very risky in shark prone areas, thats because a bodyboarder laying on the board wearing flippers, from 50 feet below the surface, look just like a big fat seal resting on the surface. The shark ambush attack is to swim under in the darkness, then turn shoot straight up from beneith and kill the seal in one fatal bite. Sadly though sharks sometimes mistake surfers and bodyboarders for seals often with fatal results. Sad for the family.

[Tim 31]

I Kayak the Pacific and have seen large shadows pass under me, a ten footer was a Califorina Golden seal lion, huge with no fear of me and the eighteen to twinty footers never surface. Our moto in my circle is October thru january stay out of the pacific ocean and let The white sharks breed and move on or get a bigger boat.