BY COOPER GEGAN<\/p>\n
Most shark bites happen by accident. Though Jaws has led to the popular narrative of sharks as man-hunting, killing machines, one prevailing theory states that a number of shark encounters are simply the result of mistaken identity<\/a> -\u2013 cases in which sharks mistake humans for seals or other prey. But as one Australian man found out recently, some seals may be purposefully deceiving sharks into making that mistake.<\/p>\n The incident occurred offshore from Kangaroo Island, southwest of Adelaide, in South Australia. A man in his 50s was surfing at around 1 pm when he was bitten by a shark. It appears that the bite was a result of a seal using the man as a sort of human shield.<\/p>\n \u201cA surfer has been taken to hospital after receiving two shark bites from a large Bronze Whaler at \u2018The Sewer\u2019 surf break, D\u2019Estrees Bay,\u201d wrote Shark Watch SA on Facebook<\/a>, based on information from a public submission. \u201cAccording to the report, a Bronze Whaler was chasing a seal around the bay when the seal used the surfer as a decoy, and the victim was bitten twice by the shark.\u201d<\/p>\n