The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey, in the United States, between July 1 and 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one injured. The incidents occurred during a deadly summer heat wave and polio epidemic in the United States that drove thousands of people to the seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the great white shark and the bull shark most frequently cited.
Personal and national reaction to the fatalities involved a wave of panic that led to shark hunts aimed at eradicating the population of "man-eating" sharks and protecting the economies of New Jersey's seaside communities. Resort towns enclosed their public beaches with steel nets to protect swimmers. Scientific knowledge about sharks before 1916 was based on conjecture and speculation. The attacks forced ichthyologists to reassess common beliefs about the abilities of sharks and the nature of shark attacks.
Jersey Shore Shark Attack sub download
Between July 1 and 12, 1916, five people were attacked along the coast of New Jersey by sharks; only one of the victims survived. The first major attack occurred on Saturday, July 1 at Beach Haven, a resort town established on Long Beach Island off the southern coast of New Jersey. Charles Epting Vansant, 28, of Philadelphia, was on vacation at the Engleside Hotel with his family. Before dinner, Vansant decided to take a quick swim in the Atlantic with a Chesapeake Bay Retriever that was playing on the beach. Shortly after entering the water, Vansant began shouting. Bathers believed he was calling to the dog, but a shark was actually biting Vansant's legs. He was rescued by lifeguard Alexander Ott and bystander Sheridan Taylor, who claimed the shark followed him to shore as they pulled the bleeding Vansant from the water. Vansant's left thigh was stripped of its flesh; he bled to death on the manager's desk of the Engleside Hotel at 6:45 PM.[1]
Despite the Vansant attack, beaches along the Jersey Shore remained open. Sightings of large sharks swimming off the coast of New Jersey were reported by sea captains entering the ports of Newark and New York City but were dismissed. The second major attack occurred on Thursday, July 6, 1916, at the resort town of Spring Lake, New Jersey, 45 miles (72 km) north of Beach Haven. The victim was Charles Bruder, 27, a Swiss bell captain at the Essex & Sussex Hotel. Bruder was attacked while swimming 130 yards (120 m) from shore. A shark bit him in the abdomen and severed his legs; Bruder's blood turned the water red. After hearing screams, a woman notified two lifeguards that a canoe with a red hull had capsized and was floating just at the water's surface. Lifeguards Chris Anderson and George White rowed to Bruder in a lifeboat and realized he had been bitten by a shark. They pulled him from the water, but he bled to death on the way to shore. According to The New York Times, "women [were] panic-stricken [and fainted] as [Bruder's] mutilated body ... [was] brought ashore." Guests and workers at the Essex & Sussex and neighboring hotels raised money for Bruder's mother in Switzerland.[2][3]
The next two major attacks took place in Matawan Creek near the town of Keyport on Wednesday, July 12. Located 30 miles (48 km) north of Spring Lake and inland of Raritan Bay, Matawan resembled a Midwestern town rather than an Atlantic beach resort.[4] Matawan's location made it an unlikely site for interactions between sharks and humans. When Thomas Cottrell, a sea captain and Matawan resident, spotted an 8-foot-long (2.4 m) shark in the creek, the town dismissed him.[5] Around 2:00 PM a group of local boys, including young Lester Stilwell, 11, were playing in the creek together. One of the boys had brought along his pet dog, which was swimming with them as well. At an area called "Wyckoff Dock" they saw what appeared to be an "old, black weather-beaten board or a weathered log."[6] A dorsal fin appeared in the water and the boys realized it was a shark. Before Stilwell could climb from the creek, the shark pulled him underwater.[7]
The boys ran to town for help, and several men, including local businessman Watson Stanley Fisher, 24, came to investigate. Fisher and others dived into the creek to find Stilwell, believing him to have suffered a seizure. After locating the boy's body and attempting to return to shore, Fisher was also bitten by the shark in front of the townspeople, losing Stilwell in the process.[8] His right thigh was severely injured and he bled to death at Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch at 5:30 PM.[9] Stilwell's body was recovered 150 feet (46 m) upstream from the Wyckoff dock on July 14.[10]
The fifth and final victim, Joseph Dunn, 14, of New York City was attacked a half-mile from the Wyckoff dock nearly 30 minutes after the fatal attacks on Stilwell and Fisher. The shark bit his left leg, but Dunn was rescued by his brother and friend after a vicious tug-of-war battle with the shark. Joseph Dunn was taken to Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick; he recovered from the bite and was released on September 15, 1916.[11]
As the national media descended on Beach Haven, Spring Lake, and Matawan, the Jersey Shore attacks started a shark panic.[12] According to Capuzzo, this panic was "unrivaled in American history", "sweeping along the coasts of New York and New Jersey and spreading by telephone and wireless, letter and postcard."[13]
Shark sightings increased along the Mid-Atlantic Coast following the attacks. On July 8, armed motorboats patrolling the beach at Spring Creek chased an animal they thought to be a shark, and Asbury Park's Asbury Avenue Beach was closed after lifeguard Benjamin Everingham claimed to have beaten off a 12-foot-long (4 m) shark with an oar. Sharks were spotted near Bayonne, New Jersey; Rocky Point, New York; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama, and a columnist from Field & Stream captured a sandbar shark in the surf at Beach Haven.[20][21] Actress Gertrude Hoffmann was swimming at the Coney Island beach shortly after the Matawan fatalities when she claimed to have encountered a shark. The New York Times noted that Hoffman "had the presence of mind to remember that she had read in the Times that a bather can scare away a shark by splashing, and she beat up the water furiously." Hoffman was certain she was going to be devoured by the "Jersey man-eater", but later admitted she was "not sure ... whether she had her trouble for nothing or had barely escaped death."[22][23]
Local New Jersey governments made efforts to protect bathers and the economy from man-eating sharks.[24] The Fourth Avenue Beach at Asbury Park was enclosed with a steel-wire-mesh fence and patrolled by armed motorboats; it remained the only beach open following the Everingham incident. After the attacks on Stilwell, Fisher, and Dunn, residents of Matawan lined Matawan Creek with nets and detonated dynamite in an attempt to catch and kill the shark. Matawan mayor Arris B. Henderson ordered the Matawan Journal to print wanted posters offering a $100 reward ($2,500 in 2021 dollars) to anyone who killed a shark in the creek. Despite the town's efforts, no sharks were captured or killed in Matawan Creek.[25]
Resort communities along the Jersey Shore petitioned the federal government to aid local efforts to protect beaches and hunt sharks. The House of Representatives appropriated $5,000 ($120,000 in 2021 dollars) for eradicating the New Jersey shark threat, and President Woodrow Wilson scheduled a meeting with his Cabinet to discuss the fatal attacks. Treasury secretary William Gibbs McAdoo suggested that the Coast Guard be mobilized to patrol the Jersey Shore and protect sun bathers.[26] Shark hunts ensued across the coasts of New Jersey and New York; as the Atlanta Constitution reported on July 14, "Armed shark hunters in motor boats patrolled the New York and New Jersey coasts today while others lined the beaches in a concerted effort to exterminate the man-eaters ..."[27] New Jersey governor James Fairman Fielder and local municipalities offered bounties to individuals hunting sharks.[28] Hundreds of sharks were captured on the East Coast as a result of the attacks. The East Coast shark hunt has been described as "the largest scale animal hunt in history."[29]
No further attacks were reported along the Jersey Shore in the summer of 1916 after the capture of Schleisser's great white shark. Murphy and Lucas declared the great white to be the "Jersey man-eater".[36]
Having read with much interest the account of the fatality off Spring Lake, N.J., I should like to offer a suggestion somewhat at variance with the shark theory. Scientists believe it is most unlikely that a shark was responsible, and lots of people though believe it much more likely that the attack was made by a sea turtle. Scientists have spent much time at sea and along shore, and have several times seen turtles large enough to inflict just such wounds. These creatures are of a vicious disposition, and when annoyed are extremely dangerous to approach, and it is a common theory that Bruder may have disturbed one while it was asleep on or close to the surface.[37]
Biologists George A. Llano and Richard Ellis suggest that a bull shark could have been responsible for the fatal Jersey Shore attacks. Bull sharks swim from the ocean into freshwater rivers and streams and have attacked people around the world. In his book Sharks: Attacks on Man (1975), Llano writes,
One of the most surprising aspects of the Matawan Creek attacks was the distance from the open sea. Elsewhere in the book are accounts of well-documented shark-human interactions at Ahwaz, Iran, which is 90 miles (140 km) upriver from the sea. It may also be of interest to note that sharks live in Lake Nicaragua, a fresh-water body, and in 1944 there was a bounty offered for dead freshwater sharks, as they had "killed and severely injured lake bathers recently."[42] 2ff7e9595c
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