Shark attacks in 2024 cause injuries in Florida, Hawaii and California

As summer approaches, reports of shark attacks are piling up. The most recent? A 25-year-old woman who was in serious condition on Friday after an apparent attack off the island of Oahu.

That same day, two shark attacks occurred off beaches in the Florida Panhandle, injuring a woman and two young girls, reported the Northwest Florida Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Network.

On Saturday, authorities reopened beaches in Walton County and neighboring Bay County in Florida. Both counties changed their beach flags from double red (waters closed to the public) to single red and purple – indicating a high level of danger and the presence of dangerous marine life.

“The Walton County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Fish and Wildlife will have their boats in the Gulf monitoring the shoreline,” said Corey Dobridnia, Walton County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, as reported by the Northwest Florida Daily News. “We just ask that everyone be aware of their surroundings while in the water.”

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What happened in the shark attack near Honolulu, Hawaii?

The still-unidentified 25-year-old woman was critically injured Friday in an apparent shark attack in the waters off Hawaii’s Oahu island near Haleiwa Small Boat Harbor, a popular destination for shark tours, according to KHON, a Honolulu Hawaii Fox affiliate, which was among several news outlets reporting on the attack. Paramedics arrived around 2 p.m. HST/8 p.m. ET Friday and treated the woman for multiple injuries, taking her to a trauma hospital in serious condition, Sunny Johnson, paramedic chief for Honolulu Emergency Medical Services, reported The Associated Press. Further details were not available.

In March, another shark attack occurred on eastern Oahu in Ka’a’awa while an 11-year-old girl was swimming – reportedly the state’s first shark encounter this year. In another attack two days later, on March 4 in Waikīkī, a shark bit off the tail of a surfboard, according to the state’s shark incident log.

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What happened with the shark attacks in Florida?

A woman was injured by a shark after 1:15 p.m. ET Friday while swimming past the first sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico in Walton County, west of Laguna Beach, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office. The 45-year-old woman lost her left forearm and suffered injuries to her midsection, officials said at a news conference Friday afternoon. She was hospitalized in critical condition, officials said.

Less than two hours later, another attack occurred about five miles east near Inlet Beach. The victims, ages 15 to 17, were in waist-deep water about 4 miles from the site of the first attack. One victim was hospitalized in critical condition and one in stable condition, officials said.

“We are 100% sure it was a shark,” Dobridnia told USA TODAY. The two attacks occurred “at very close range,” he said. “It will most likely have been the same shark.”

The beaches were closed on Friday and reopened on Saturday morning.

Why do shark attacks occur?

The United States recorded the most reported unprovoked shark bites (36) in 2023—two of which were fatal—a year in which shark bites and fatal shark attacks increased slightly worldwide, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File. (Provoked bites happen when a person initiates interaction with a shark in some way, while unprovoked bites occur without human provocation.)

Florida had the most unprovoked shark activities last year (16). While that was slightly below average, the state’s extensive coastline and tourism make it a usual contender for the most shark activity, Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark research program, told USA TODAY in February.

Experts don’t believe sharks are becoming more aggressive. It’s due to a combination of factors, including people in warm water, Naylor said on the museum’s website. “That causes a lot of fear, but the reality is that on a hot day, if there are baitfish in the water, you’re going to send a lot of people into the water,” he said.

Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford said in a note on Facebook that the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had advised that “there are a lot of baitfish schooling near shore this time of year, which may have contributed to the attacks.”

Other recent shark attacks in California and Florida

A man who was hospitalized on June 2 after a shark attack was released from the hospital on June 6, according to a news release from the city of Del Mar, California. He suffered injuries to his upper body, left arm and hand from shark bites he sustained while he was about 100 yards offshore at the beach north of Torrey Pines State Park. He was part of a group of swimmers who regularly train in the area, officials said.

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