Sharks | featured news

A California surfer who survived a shark attack says he punched the beast in the head until it finally released him.

Surf Beach near Vandenberg Air Force Base along California's central coast is closed after the death of a 39-year-old man who was attacked by a shark Tuesday while surfing.

Pacific reef shark populations have plummeted by 90 percent or more over the past several decades, according a new study by a team of American and Canadian researchers, and much of this decline stems from human fishing pressure.

A Chinese delicacy may soon disappear from California restaurants if a bill to ban the sale of shark fins makes it through the state Senate.

Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad stroked through the Florida Straits early Monday, trying to accomplish at 61 years old what she failed to do at 28: swim more than 100 miles from Havana to Key West. If she makes it to the Florida Keys after an estimated 60-hour swim, Nyad would become the first person to traverse the strait without the aid of a shark cage, relying instead on technology and divers to fend off the finned predators.

Diana Nyad, from New York, is no ordinary 61-year-old. In fact, she is no ordinary woman. For her, nothing is impossible. Which is why, when she turned 60 she looked in the mirror and decided to fulfill her biggest life regret - to swim the 103 shark-infested miles from Cuba to Florida, non-stop without even a shark cage to protect her.

A German woman died Sunday after being attacked by a shark in waters off Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in an area where three snorkelers were injured and two sharks were caught last week, officials said.

Mexico's navy has seized more than a ton of cocaine stuffed inside frozen sharks, as drug gangs under military pressure go to greater lengths to conceal narcotics bound for the United States.