Witnesses reported seeing a shark in the area. One witness of the attack said one of the victim's legs was severed and there was blood everywhere, and no one could see the victim's body due to the excess of blood in the immediate area. Four of the swimmers managed to get the victim to the beach, but he died on the scene.
It is very unfortunate that something like this had to happen to someone, and usually it is a case of mistaken identity.
I think the water is getting colder and the Whites are moving back down here (So-Cal) to their natural birthing ground off Blacks and that long stretch of deep water basin / Canyon in La Jolla .
Everyone knows about the juvenile Whites that have made their home just south of the power plant at San Onofre. They have made trail 1 and the trails camping area their home, and I would not be surprized that it was one of these that initiated the attack.
You must also realize that Great Whites attack with a "bite-and-spit" method where they will sometimes circle their prey for long periods of time before initiating a single bite, and then they will circle their prey and wait for it to bleed to death before they move in to finish it as a food item.
Great whites in other countries have been known to move and hunt in packs like wolves, where usually one White will initiate the attack and others have been known to attack after the initial attack. This has been proven through tagging, monitoring, and also measuring the bite radius and bite wounds on a victim, where it is obvious that the tooth and jaw patterns do not match up, proving the theory of multiple sharks involved in a single attack.
A combination of these hypothesized theories could be the case with our Solana Beach Victim.
Most likely, the White (or Whites) was / were attracted to the irregular stroke patterns of the 9 swimmers, which sent vibrations and electrical impulses off for distances sensed by the Great White's Ampulae of Lorenzini, where it recognized the pattern as either a wounded fish or prey item, or a seal (or pack of seals).
Since the swimmer was at the rear of the pack, and Great Whites will only attack if they feel that their cover has not been blown, they picked this victim over the others to avoid giving away their stealth presence and to avoid being confronted by the other swimmers (i.e. a group of migrating or feeding seals).
To me, the case of mistaken identity comes into play here because the victim was not eaten. He was bitten and spit out, and probably circled, while the shark or sharks waited for him to bleed out so they could come back for him.
Most of the time however, when a human is attacked like this, the shark will realize that they have not attacked a prey item, and will swim off leaving most victims to survive the attack.
The splashing around in the morning feeding hours is most likely what triggered this attack. It could have also been a case of the shark feeling a threat to the area where juvenile great whites may have been occupying the same space; or even a case of an attack due to feeling threatened by a competition for food, since seals are near by and the swimmers may have been sensed as a threat to the sharks natural prey items. A number of things could have gone on here.
I also believe that dive charters who are feeding sharks and putting people over the side in cages in Isla de Guadelupe , Mexico
It is not a case for us to issue a "man-hunt" for the Shark or Sharks involved. We are in THEIR territory when we are swimming and surfing and kayaking, etc. They are only doing what is natural and instinctual to them, hunting and finding food in a place that we have made it VERY HARD for them to do.
The last time this happened in San Diego County was in 1959, and the victim was Robert Pamperin, off Alligator Rock in La Jolla, while collecting Abalone. Pamperin's dive partner said it looked like a Killer Whale had been shaking him on the bottom, so no one knows what really happened.
We each have our time to go, and none of us will know when that is until it happens.
My condolences go out to this victim's family.