iStockphoto / Howard Chen
A kayak fisherman in Oahu went viral last year when he captured footage of a tiger shark ramming his kayak at full speed and biting his vessel, nearly missing his legs by mere inches, before releasing the boat and swimming off.
It was, without a doubt, one of the most tense tiger shark encounters I’d seen last year and at the time there seemed to be no explanation for what caused this aggressive behavior and attack from the shark. Flash forward nearly 12 months and the fisherman, Scott Haraguchi who runs the Hawaii Nearshore Fishing YouTube channel, believes he has solved the incident.
In a new video posted to his YouTube channel, Haraguchi explains why he believes the tiger shark attacked. The long and short of it is he believes the shark mistook him as competition for a seal in the area.
Kayak Fisherman Explains Tiger Shark Attack In Oahu
Most people, myself included, assumed the tiger shark was attracted to the kayak because he was fishing and the scent of fish blood was in the water. Some also believed the shark mistook the kayak as a seal or turtle.
A year later, Haraguchi says otherwise. He says “the shark approaches the front of the kayak as if it ram it or scare it, instead of eat it.” Adding that as the shark slides up the side of the kayak it realizes that the boat was hard plastic and nothing edible and quickly gives up and moves along.
Haraguchi says he doesn’t remember if he actually pushed the shark away with his foot because everything happened so suddenly he really has no recollection of how it all went down. The tiger shark suddenly attacked and it was over in an instant.
He says that him and his fishing partner “stayed in the general area” and they saw an injured seal. The presumption is the tiger shark injured that seal. Also that the shark viewed them as potential competition for the seal.
Of course, there is no way of knowing for certain what caused the tiger shark attack but with the benefit of hindsight his theory seems quite plausible.