Will a White Line 100 Yards Offshore Prevent Shark Attacks on Maui?

Since the media always reports that all shark attacks occur 100 yards offshore, Maui County officials are exploring ideas to keep active water-lovers either 95 yards from the beach, or at least 105 yards away.

A pilot program to study using chalk to denote the 100-yard corridor started last week, and so far at least one swimmer applauded the idea.

“Thank goodness that white cloud was right there, because I swear I saw a huge dorsal fin splitting the line right down the middle,” said Jim Johnston, a visitor from Newbury Park, Calif. who for some reason decided to swim way offshore near Kaupo. “It was terrifying. It stayed right on that 100-yard line for like a quarter mile. Never seen anything like it.”

It was there that county workers last week began the first experiment to deter swimmers from staying too long in the vaunted corridor 100 yards offshore.

“People said Kaupo was a silly place to drop the chalk line, because no one swims there,” said Kekoa Jones, a lead researcher for the Pacific Ocean Shark Institute which is working with the county to address tiger shark attacks off island beaches. “Well this sure proved them wrong. This has the added benefit of proving once again that we just cannot predict the swimming and water sports usage of visitors. They are a pesky bunch to understand.”

A Maui shark attack study released by POSI in 2021, which looked at shark attacks on Maui going back 20 years, showed that such incidents almost always occur at or near 100 yards offshore.

“We took a look at years and years of newspaper and media reports on the shark attacks, and sure as heck, they always state that incidents happened ‘about 100 yards offshore,” Jones said.

Organization and county personnel are having difficulties with the chalk like concept, since the chalk seems to dissipate within minutes when dropped right into ocean water.

“Yeah, we’re still working on that,” Jones said.

Other ideas to keep swimmer inside of 95 yards or beyond 105 yards include a long yellow rope held up by buoys shaped like orange safety cones; a long string of those silly foam swim noodles, in alternating rainbow colors for inclusivity; or requiring visitors to read the shark attack study report before entering the water.

Local lifeguards were supportive but cautious about the 100-yard warning system.

“It might be helpful when using our bullhorn from the beach, to inform swimmers, surfers, stand-up paddle boarders that they are approaching that 100-yard point, because with a big white line we could better estimate it" said Lopaka Hoʻomākeʻaka, a lifeguard at one of the Kamaole beaches in Kihei. “But in the end, who is to say the sharks won’t get keen and steer clear of the white cloud? Then we get a lot of attacks at 95 and 105 yards, and there we are again right back where we started.”