HONOLULU — The Kauai surfer was lucky: The 8-foot-long shark that took a half-moon-shaped chomp out of his board didn't go for a second bite.
The surfer made it back to shore, shaken but unharmed, and the spat-out, 13-inch chunk of board washed up onshore later that day, Jan. 5, the only casualty of the first shark attack of 2007 on a surfboard.
Given the shark's razor-sharp teeth, a carnivorous appetite and a reputation as a man-eater, it's easy to understand why attacks like that grab headlines.
But conservationists are out to rehabilitate the shark's image and rally support for protecting the misunderstood fish's dwindling numbers. They say 20 percent of the world's sharks are threatened and are asking the public to give up its fear and act on the predator's behalf.
"They're not all just teeth," said Sonja Fordham, policy director of the Belgium-based Shark Alliance and director of the shark conservation program of the Washington-based Ocean Conservancy.
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Experts point out that for all the hoopla over shark attacks, they're relatively few and fatalities even fewer. Last year there were 86 known and suspected shark encounters, according to the Global Shark Attack File.
Meanwhile, about 100 million sharks and their relatives are killed each year, deliberately or as fishermen's by-catch, according to the Shark Alliance, an international coalition of advocacy and ocean recreation groups.
That would make for a fatality ratio of about 1 human to every 10 million sharks, some conservation advocates say.
