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05/23/2008 Osvaldo Mata Valdovinos (Mexico) ***Fatal***

Worldwide Reported Shark Attack Related Incidents in 2008.
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sharkbait
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Re: 05/23/2008 Osvaldo Mata Valdovinos (Mexico) ***Fatal***

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Shark kills Mexican surfer
Posted Sun May 25, 2008 6:23am AEST

A shark has killed a 21-year-old surfer off a Mexican Pacific coast beach, local police said overnight, the second fatal shark attack in the area in less than a month.

Mexican Osvaldo Mata, a student at a nearby university, was surfing with friends near the resort town of Zihuatanejo on Friday (local time) when a shark grabbed him, bit off one of his hands and took two bites out of his thigh, a police spokeswoman said.

His friends paddled him back to shore, a few metres away, but he lost consciousness and died before medics arrived.

"Two witnesses, his friends who were swimming with him, told us they saw a two-metre shark attack him and pull him underwater," a police spokeswoman for the state of Guerrero said.

The attack, at a beach called Pantla around 20 kilometres from Zihuatanejo, happened less than a month after American tourist Adrian Ruiz, 24, died from a shark bite while surfing at Troncones beach, a few kilometres away.

Zihuatanejo's civil protection director Jaime Vazquez said surfers at Pantla beach saw fins in the sea shortly before the attack, which he said broke Mr Mata's femur and left a 30 centimetre wound in his thigh, causing him to bleed to death.

Pantla and Troncones beaches are around 240 kilometres from Acapulco, Mexico's best-known Pacific resort and a magnet for some 6 million Mexican and foreign tourists each year.

The attacks have alarmed residents of coastal resorts in Mexico, where fatal shark attacks are rare.

The last shark death in Mexico was in the Caribbean in 1997, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File.

No one had been killed by a shark on Mexico's Pacific coast in over 30 years, according to the museum's records.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... 254776.htm
sharkbait
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Posts: 1372
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:04 pm

Re: 05/23/2008 Osvaldo Mata Valdovinos (Mexico) ***Fatal***

Post by sharkbait »

Surfer dies in shark attack off Mexico's Pacific coast near Acapulco
By Robin Gedye
Last Updated: 4:06PM BST 24/05/2008

A surfer has been killed by a shark off Mexico’s Pacific coast, just six miles from a beach where an American man died in a similar attack last month, authorities have said.

Osvaldo Mata Valdovinos, 21, was attacked on Friday while surfing off Pantla beach west of Acapulco. The shark bit off his left hand and broke one of his legs.

Jorge Duque Valle, who witnessed the attack, said: "He raised his hand and screamed, and that was when his hand and leg were bitten.

"Osvaldo went under. He was under water for a while and then he emerged bleeding."

The attack came less than a month after 24-year-old Adrian Ruiz from San Francisco died after being bitten by a shark while surfing off nearby Troncones beach.

Mexican authorities used baited hooks to catch sharks in the area the next day.

Environmentalists opposed the hunt and demanded that authorities posted signs on beaches in the area warning about sharks.

Mr Ruiz died four days after another man was killed by a great white shark off the Californian coast.

Marine biologists are investigating the possible causes of the attacks or whether they are just an astonishing coincidence.

Before the recent attacks there had not been a fatal shark attack on Mexico’s Pacific coast for 30 years and it had been almost 15 years since anyone was killed by a shark off Southern California.

There are suggestions that growing seal populations are attracting sharks to tourist areas, especially during March and April when female sharks arrive in the warmer waters between California and Mexico to give birth.

But other experts have suggested that overfishing of marine species that sharks feed on has resulted in increased attacks on humans.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... pulco.html
sharkbait
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Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:04 pm

05/23/2008 Osvaldo Mata Valdovinos (Mexico) ***Fatal***

Post by sharkbait »

Shark kills 21-year-old surfer off Mexico's southern Pacific coast


ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) - A surfer was killed by a shark off Mexico's Pacific coast, a mere 6 miles (10 kilometers) from a beach where an American man died in a similar attack last month, authorities said.

Osvaldo Mata Valdovinos, 21, was attacked Friday while surfing off Pantla beach west of Acapulco, said local Civil
Protection Director Jaime Vazquez Sobreira. The shark bit off his left hand and broke one of his legs, Vazquez Sobreira said.

Another young man, Jorge Duque Valle, said he witnessed the attack.

«He raised his hand and screamed, and that was when his hand and leg were bitten,» Duque Valle said. «Osvaldo went under. He was under water for a while and then he emerged bleeding.

The attack came less than a month after 24-year-old Adrian Ruiz of San Francisco died after being bitten by a shark while surfing off Troncones beach. Mexican authorities used baited hooks to catch sharks in the area the next day.

Environmentalists opposed the hunt and have demanded that authorities post signs in the area's beaches warning about sharks.


http://www.pr-inside.com/shark-kills-21 ... 606475.htm
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