Shark bites kayaker off Malibu coast

A kayaker fishing off a beach near Malibu, Calif., was bit Saturday by a shark and needed to be airlifted to a nearby hospital.

The kayaker, identified as Dylan Marks, 29, was fishing with a friend Saturday afternoon and dangling his feet in the water when a hammerhead shark bit his right foot about two miles off shore, according to KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.

Kyle Hudgins, who was fishing with Marks, told KNBC-TV that the pair saw the hammerhead shark just before it dove under water. A few minutes later, Marks felt the bite.

“He put his foot up on the kayak and he said, 'Oh, dude. I just got bit!'" Hudgins said.

The wounded kayaker flagged down a fishing boat that was nearby and got onboard, where he was able to control the bleeding, according to the Associated Press. Lifeguards paddled to the boat and accompanied the kayaker back to shore.

Marks underwent surgery and was in good condition.

The incident comes exactly a week after a shark — possibly a great white — bit a large chunk from the long board of a surfer, 175 miles up the coast off Morro Strand State Beach. That person was uninjured.

There were 52 shark attacks off U.S. waters last year, though only six fatalities from the predators have occurred the past decade, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History, which tracks shark attacks. The vast majority of last year’s attacks — 28 — came off Florida’s coast, according to the museum.

Despite many more swimmers in the water and repeated reports of shark attacks in California, the risk of individual attacks off that state’s coast has dropped 91% the past six decades, according to a recent study led by Stanford University researchers.

The decline in actual risk may be due to factors such as a drop in the white shark population off California's coast and a shift in white shark spatial distribution in response to growing populations of seals — a favorite prey, according to the report.