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CNN Live At Daybreak

Shark Attacks: Florida Officials to Determine Safety of Beach

Aired August 27, 2001 - 08:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Beach officials in Florida will decide today whether to open a stretch of beach popular with surfers and with sharks.

A boogie boarder was bitten Saturday at New Smyrna Beach. That is the ninth attack there just in the past week.

Captain Rob Horster is with the Volusia County Beach Patrol -- good morning, Captain.

CAPT. ROB HORSTER, VOLUSIA COUNTY BEACH PATROL: Good morning to you, Carol.

LIN: What do you think the decision is going to be?

HORSTER: I'd like to be part of that last story, OK?

LIN: Oh, I know. You could buy extra beach patrol for sure. You could pay the sharks to go away.

HORSTER: Oh, I tell you.

LIN: What's going to happen on the beach today? Are you shutting it down?

HORSTER: Well, we are assessing that right now. We have a helicopter going out to check everything out. We're trying to make a smart decision here. We want to keep everybody's safety in mind, and there is a lot of factors going into the fact -- you know, going into whether we open or not.

LIN: What is the question here, though? I mean, it seems to be that sharks are going to be in the water for however much longer this season and so are people. Why not just separate the two, shut the beach down?

HORSTER: Exactly. Well, you know, anywhere in the world you go in the ocean, you're going to have sharks. It's a natural thing. You take that risk every time you go in the ocean. Every time you go in a lake, you have alligators in the lake. So are you going to shut everything down? It's a very tough decision. It's not as easy as just that. I mean, just because you don't see sharks out there, it doesn't mean they are not out there. They are out there every day of every year. The odd thing here is that you have so many bites in a short period of time. And that's why we closed it down. Today, we are reassessing that, and hopefully moving on as far as I am concerned.

LIN: Yes, you're right. Sharks in the water every summer to be sure, and yet the weird thing that's happening, even though the overall number of shark bites worldwide is not dramatically increased, it just so happens that Florida's is. It's just this odd coincidence.

And even when you post a sign...

HORSTER: It's our luck of the draw.

LIN: Yes, a luck of the draw.

HORSTER: Right.

LIN: And even when you post the signs, though...

HORSTER: Right.

LIN: ... what amazes me is that a lot of these surfers and boogie boarders and swimmers ignore the signs...

HORSTER: Yes.

LIN: ... and they go in the water. Is there any sort of penalty for ignoring those signs?

HORSTER: Well, we have the authority to shut the water down, and if we have to, we can go out and pluck them out of the water and make an arrest. But, of course, we would rather not do that. These surfers, though, if you're not a local down here, they have seen it every day of their lives. They go out there all of the time. There are sharks out there all of the time -- sometimes more, sometimes less. But these guys, it's something they do.

If you have a race car driver going around the track at 200 miles an hour, to you and me, that's very scary and it's a risk. But to him, it's not as much of a risk, because he does it all of the time. These surfers see these sharks all of the time, and it's not a big deal to them.

LIN: All right. Well, it seems to be a big deal to us certainly as we cover every shark bite down there in Florida.

HORSTER: Yes.

LIN: All right. We will...

HORSTER: Yes. I want to make...

LIN: ... await the decision.

HORSTER: Yes.

LIN: I'm sorry, Captain?

HORSTER: OK.

LIN: We've got time -- anything else?

HORSTER: I want to make sure everybody knows that these are shark bites, not shark attacks.

LIN: OK. An important distinction. Thanks so much, Captain Rob Horster.

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