The last 100 years of shark attacks in the Bay Area mapped

Photo: Neil Hammerschlag, Associated Press Photo: Neil Hammerschlag, Associated Press Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close The last 100 years of shark attacks in the Bay Area mapped 1 / 27 Back to Gallery

If the recent news of shark attacks around the country or the increase in shark sightings along the California coast (possibly due to El Niño) have you worried, it may comfort you to see a map of the last 100 years of shark attacks in the Bay Area.

Don't panic — there are lots of dots but only one fatality in the recorded history of the region. That unfortunate swimmer was 18-year-old Albert Kogler Jr., who was killed while treading water at Baker Beach in 1959. The story is a tragic one you can read about here; his heroic classmate Shirley O'Neill towed him 20 minutes to shore and was awarded the Young American Medal for Bravery by President John F. Kennedy.

Also reassuring is the fact that one of San Francisco's handful of shark attacks happened on land at the Steinhart Aquarium. In 1962, a misguided aquarium guest dove into a tank to try to capture a shark. The 55-year-old male was bitten on his arm by a sevengill shark but survived the encounter. It's a little unfair to call that an "attack"; that shark had every right to not want to taken out of its tank.

If you click on each marker, you can find out the date and specifics of the attack:

Another interesting historical note: Two shark attacks in the bay both took place before 1930 and involved people swimming near canneries. It's probably not a coincidence sharks were drawn into the bay by those canneries.

State-wide, only 10 people have been killed by sharks since 1926: two in San Diego County, two in Santa Barbara County, two in Monterey County, two in San Luis Obispo and one each in San Francisco and Mendocino.

If you're interested in reading more about the history of California shark attacks, the Global Shark Attack File keeps a fascinating incident log.