Shark attacks for Shark Week 2014

Last week was Shark Week, even on Daily Kos.  Here are the two stories I received about the Discovery Channel promotional event that I used as the lead stories last week.

First, Mary Landers of Savannah Now reported Shark-bitten turtle rescued on Ossabaw.

This loggerhead's story is one of bad luck turned good.

First the bad: She was bitten by a shark. That's clear from the telltale semi-lunar chunk missing from her shell behind her right front leg, said naturalist John "Crawfish" Crawford.

A shark bite is a bit unusual for a big girl like Phoenix, an adult sea turtle who weighs in at 190 pounds. Sharks aren't known to be discriminating diners, but Georgia's adult loggerheads are too large and spend too much time feeding on the ocean floor to be much of a target for these predators, said Mark Dodd, a Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist and the state's sea turtle coordinator.

Next, Tanya Lewis of LiveScience asked Shark Attack … In a Lake?!

The idea of a shark attacking someone in the ocean is scary enough, but this week, a 7-year-old boy was bitten by one of these fearsome fish in a lake.

The boy was swimming in Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, when something bumped into him in the water and chomped down on his foot, USA Today reported. The bite's appearance suggests it was probably a bull shark measuring about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long, experts say. The boy is expected to recover from the incident.

I figured it would be a bull shark. I mentioned it as one species of shark most likely to venture into freshwater to my biodiversity class this summer.  If I remember this story, I can give it as an example to my biodiversity students next summer.

That's it for this year's Shark Week.  It's less attention than I paid to it last year, when I posted A week of sharks, hurricanes, and geeks.  I'm OK with that.