kayaker killed in Hawaii today

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by PAL

The victim's appears to have been the granite one. No one can say whether he had used the pedal drive immediately prior to the strike. I don't see Hawaii's on the water environment and hazards the same as ours locally.

I completely agree.

Tigers are much more opportunistic feeders then whites and they will pretty much eat anything. That's pretty much common knowledge but what most people do not know is that they adapt rapidly are territorial and set up often pretty unique behavior patterns.

For instance there was a shark around the Mansfield Jetties at Padre in Texas that had a habit of coming up into shallow water and ripping specs and rat reds off wade fisherman's stringers. It never happen to me, but I saw it happen to a friend right in front of me and the shark was a relatively small one about eight feet long. It went on for several years and it happened dozens of times to a number of different fisherman, and they all described the similar sized Tiger.

If I had to guess Id say the Hobie Drive and Yak color, or other issues that might of mattered here probably made no difference there. I doubt that shark was looking for monk seals. I'd bet that shark was used to stealing fish from kayak fisherman. Either fish hanging on stringers or fish that were still on the line. It probably saw the kayak and came up to see if anything was hanging in the water, then grabbed the guys leg just like it would of a hanging fish. Think of it like a stupider, deadlier, more aggressive seal.

What scares me most about tigers is when they grab something they usually don't let go. They grab on, shake their heads and try to cut it in half of with their hooked shape teeth. They evolved for feeding on sea turtles and rays, they could cut a leg off like it was butter. The other thing that scares me is if they bite something and it's remotely edible they eat it. I'm thinking that somehow the guy must have stayed in the yak, or that it was a small shark because if it was a big tiger over say ten feet and it had got him under water I don't think they would of ever found him.

Hate to hear these things. Bottom line keep your feet in the kayak. Also it wouldn't hurt to learn a little first aid especially about tourniquets, because about half the time when our local sharks attack someone they spit them back out.

Jim