Attack Of The Cookie Monster

Mike Spalding, a 61-year-old resident of Maui and devoted ocean swimmer, wasn't sure at first what attacked him in the water on Monday night. It happened during Spalding's attempt to swim the nearly 30-mile stretch across the Alenuihaha Channel from the Big Island of Hawaii to Maui. Spalding was about 4 1/2 hours and 11 miles into crossing the channel at about 8 PM when he felt a sharp pain on his sternum and then on his leg. "I got hit in the calf," he said. "It was such a disappointment because I knew the swim was over. I was bleeding profusely."

"I didn't see it," he said of the attacker. "All I felt was the bite, and I got the hell out of the water as quick as I could."

Fortunately for Spalding, he was being accompanied by friends in a support boat and with a kayak. After the attack, he swam to the kayak and scrambled on board. Spalding managed to control the bleeding until the support boat returned to Maui where he could seek medical attention at the Maui Memorial Medical Center. Based on the symmetrical shape wound on both his calf and sternum, Spalding and his doctors concluded that he was the victim of a Cookie-Cutter shark attack.

Cookie-cutter sharks (Isistius brasiliensis) are small (about half a meter long) rarely-seen species of dogfish shark. They get their rather cute name from the most un-adorable habit of removing small circular chunks of flesh from marine mammals and large fish. Photographic evidence has accumulated from sport fishers of many a ruined trophy fish following opportunistic attacks by Cookie-Cutter sharks. The presence of fur doesn't seem to serve as a deterrent from Cookie-Cutter attacks, as evidenced from images of pinnipeds (such as the Hawaiian Monk seal below) with circular plugs of flesh removed from their hides.

Cookie-Cutter sharks are known to vertically migrate, normally being found in deep water (probably below 1000 meters during the day) and migrating into surface waters at night to feed. Mike Spalding just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended-up being just another selection on that evening's buffet menu.

I must admit a certain deja vu over Spalding's recent attack. While on the Big Island this week, I remarked to my conservation colleagues, Liz Foote and Kara Osada, that we should still try the Pelagic Magic black water night dive with Jack's Diving Locker. Regular readers will recall that I continue to wet myself in anticipation of a night dive in 2000 feet of pitch-black water awaiting whatever decides to swim through my puny flashlight beam.

Kara, who has done the black water dive at least five times, gushed to Liz and I how they have seen Marlin, Oceanic White-Tip sharks, Blue sharks, and even Cookie-Cutter sharks during the dive. Liz and I looked at each other and rolled with laughter as we remarked how totally awesome it would be to be attacked by a Cookie-Cutter and have lifetime bragging rights with a most bitchin' circular scar and a divot of flesh removed from our legs.

Alas, Mike Spalding has beaten us to it! Undeterred, Spalding is already planning his next attempt, "I'm looking forward to the next time I get out there and finish this channel."

So here's to you, Mike. Hope you heal quickly. And the beer is on me next time I'm on Maui, as long as Liz and I get to see the scar!