Page 17from Tom
Leonard
IN NEW YORKdeluge of seals but of people that
presaged the shark-infested
summer of 1916. Expanding rail
travel had opened up the New
Jersey coast’s beautiful sandy
beaches to hordes of New Yorkers
who were now splashing around in
previously still waters.
When that first Great White
realised that here was easy meat,
public opinion had been lulled
into complacency about the
threat. The previous year, the New
York Times had run a piece by
America’s greatest zoologist, Dr
Frederic Lucas, director of the
American Museum of Natural His-
tory, declaring that sharks were
timid creatures with feeble bites.
Other experts agreed that sharks
were scavengers that hardly ever
came close to shore. And so when
Mr Vansant met his fate, some
theorised that he had been
attacked by turtles, a tuna, a giant
mackerel or even a torpedo fired
by a German submarine.D
OWN on the Jersey
Shore (then New York’s
Riviera), no fears over
sharks got in the way of
preparations for the July 4
Independence Day celebrations.
On July 6 — five days after Mr
Vansant’s death — the shark
struck again, this time 45 miles
north in the fashionable beach
resort of Spring Lake.
Lifeguards, hearing a bloodcur-
dling scream, turned to see what
they thought was a red upturned
canoe in the water. It was Charles
Bruder, a 28-year-old hotel bell-
boy, swimming in his own blood
that had pooled around him.
An eyewitness said Mr Bruder
had ‘leaped from the water with
his right leg gone... blood spurt-
ing from the wound. He then fell
back into the water and the
shark made another attack’.
When the lifeguards hoisted
him into a boat, they discov-
ered both Bruder’s legs had
been ripped away just below
the knees.
He died before they reached
the shore, leaving the doctors
who had rushed to the scene
to instead treat the dozens of
women who fainted in shock.
This time, officials got the
message, closing beaches
along the coast, installing
‘shark proof ’ wire netting and
sending out armed patrol
boats. Newspapers referred to
a ‘sea monster’ and ‘sea wolf ’.
Wartime anti-German senti-
ment was high and a reader
of the New York Times
claimed sharks were follow-
ing U-boats from Europe.
‘Let’s go kill some sharks!’
became a popular rallying
cry. Just as in Jaws,C
HARLES VANSANT was
the first victim, a strap-
ping 25-year-old stock-
broker swimming in water
only chest-deep when the
shark struck.
Anxious to encourage a reluctant dog
to join him, the young American hadn’t
noticed the dark shadow and tell-tale
protruding fin behind him. The Great
White shark shredded his left leg to the
bone, virtually tearing it from his body.
Mr Vansant was helped back to the
beach, but bled to death at a nearby
hotel. ‘His death was the most horrible
thing I ever saw,’ said a witness.
It was July 1, 1916, but astonishingly Mr
Vansant’s grim fate at the smart New
Jersey resort of Beach Haven didn’t
instantly alert his countrymen to the
terrible danger lurking off the coast.
Four more people were to be savagely
attacked by the man-eating rogue Great
White during a summer of bloodshed and
terror that inspired Steven Spielberg’s
classic film Jaws.
Thoughts of the notorious ‘Summer Of
16’ are back in the minds of nervous
Americans on the country’s eastern
seaboard this holiday season as hundreds
of huge Great Whites circle menacingly
close to the shore. Between July and early
August, some 60 beaches have been
closed because of shark sightings around
Cape Cod, the Massachusetts summer
paradise near where Jaws was filmed.
At least 300 Great Whites — some-
times 15ft-long monsters in just 5ft of
water — have been spotted around
the Cape. Officials have responded
by putting up new warning signs
about Great Whites and issuing
lifeguards with tourniquets to
staunch bleeding from bites. Purple
shark-emblazoned warning flags fly
at beaches at all times.
Beachgoers can check the mobile
phone application Sharktivity that
tracks sightings, or listen on radios
for shark reports from passing pilots.
After one was killed by a shark last
September, local surfers — usually
more at risk than swimmers because
they venture out into deeper waters
— have fitted their boards with gadg-
ets that emit an electrical pulse that
supposedly disrupts the predators.
Others have added stripes to their
boards and wear wetsuits that make
them look less like seals, the sharks’
favourite prey.
Until the surfer was killed last
year, there hadn’t been a fatal shark
attack off Massachusetts since- However, laws protecting
Cape Cod seals from being hunted
have caused numbers to explode
and so — it is believed — drawn
in the sharks. Yet it wasn’t a TURN TO NEXT PAGE
delugeofsealsbutofpeoplethat... scores of Great Whites
have been terrorising
tourists once more, raising
blood-curdling memories
of the real-life man-eater
that inspired Jaws
Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 21, 2019