Tess Kenny
PACIFIC GROVE – For the second time in less than two months, someone out to enjoy the water off Lovers Point Beach has come in contact with a shark.
According to an afternoon press release from the Pacific Grove Police Department, a Pacific Grove resident and his dog were thrown off a paddleboard during a shark encounter about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. The shark reportedly swam underneath and then bit the paddleboard.
No one was injured, police assured. The pair were able to get back on the board and paddle to shore.
“I’m glad to read that no one was hurt,” Pacific Grove Mayor Bill Peake said by phone Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the paddleboard device involved will be tested to determine the shark species encountered. Jocelyn Francis, Pacific Grove Police spokeswoman, said by email that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is “taking samples of the board to process and I do not know when results will be released.”
Per California State Parks protocol, Lovers Point Beach and coastal access starting at the Sea Palm turnout will remain closed until Saturday.
The area will continue to be monitored during the closure, according to the release.
Earlier this summer, the same area saw a man bitten by a great white shark.
On June 22, Steve Bruemmer, 62, was attacked while swimming in the ocean off Lovers Point. Nearly a month later, he was released from Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, after undergoing three weeks of hospital care and rehabilitation.
In a video supplied by the medical center, Bruemmer said from a hospital bed that the shark bit him across his thighs and abdomen and then “it spit me out.”
Biologists with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, working with Chris Lowe, a marine biologist with Cal State Long Beach, estimated the great white shark that nearly killed Bruemmer was a minimum 14 to 15 feet long.
Though unable to speak to this week’s shark encounter specifically, Lowe said over the phone Wednesday that “people should be aware that (sharks) are out there” and to “keep doing what they are doing but pay attention to what’s happening around them.”
In 2017, a shark attacked a man spearfishing at Stillwater Cove in Pebble Beach. Santa Cruz surfer Ben Kelly died in 2020 after a shark attacked him off of Sand Dollar Beach in Aptos.
“It is unusual for Pacific Grove and Lovers Point areas to have reported shark encounters,” said Francis. “Two within seven weeks of each other is extremely rare.”
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