Earlier this month, 22-year-old Brandon Boncore was surfing off the shores of New Smyrna Beach, Fla., when he felt the jaws of a shark clamp on to his leg. Shortly before, his friend Chris Popisil was attacked in the same area.
“I took my right leg and I just kicked it off of me,” Boncore said in an interview with ABC News.
According to Surfer, New Smyrna Beach is known as the “shark bite capital of the world,” and ABC noted that more than half of the shark attacks this year have been reported off the Florida coast. Further north, shark attacks have also been reported near Rockaway Beach, N.Y., this year.
“Rockaway Beach and Jones Beach reopened Wednesday morning to swimmers after a 65-year-old woman was bitten by a shark on Monday evening, authorities said,” according to a report from 1010 WINS.
In Florida, Boncore said he was able to get a few good waves in before the shark decided it needed a snack. He also said that sharks are a common sight when he’s surfing in the area.
“Any time you walk into those waters, I might see four or five sharks each day,” Boncore said.
After his brush with one, he had surgery for his wounds.
“We might expect to see some of the sharks that are typically in warmer water move north,” said Dr. Gavin Naylor, Director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, referring to warmer waters as a result of climate change, according to Surfer.
However, just a bit west of Florida, off the Texas coast, the chances of getting chomped on by a shark decrease.
“There have been less than 100 recorded incidences of people being attacked by sharks in Texas waters,” Karen Rifenbury, the curator at Sea Life Aquarium in Grapevine, told the “Texas Wants to Know” podcast this summer. “Now, the last one was last year. It was a bite to somebody’s foot.”
That bite victim was also surfing. He was in the Packery Channel in Corpus Christi.
“I decided, you know what? I’m not comfortable out here, just intuition. And that doesn’t – I don't think that’s ever happened before,” said Jim, who said he had been surfing off the Texas coast for 50 years. “And so, I was waiting to catch a wave to go into the next break, sitting on my board, and all of a sudden, man, something really heavy hit me from underneath on my left foot, lifted me up a couple of feet, almost knocked me off my board.”
It was a shark. While it was a scary incident, complete with a bloodied foot, it hasn’t stopped Jim from surfing.
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