Sharks Galore

Following up on the original shark stories, The New York Daily News had made mention of a second shark sighting her in NY.

The summer of '07 came to an end on Coney Island yesterday with an only-in-New York fish story: meet the city lifeguard who saved - a shark.

Tender-hearted muscleman Marius Mironescu rescued a 2-foot sand shark from a mob of panicked swimmers, grabbing the wriggling fish in his arms and - in a neat reversal of the usual scenario - swimming out to sea with the stunned animal.

"There must have been 75 to 100 people circled around the shark in the water and they were bugging out," said Mironescu, 39, of Brooklyn.

"They were holding on to it and some people were actually hitting him, smacking his face. Well, I wasn't going to let them hurt the poor thing," he said.

He carried the shark - a baby, he reckons, and harmless to humans - to a less populated area and started backstroking out to sea, dragging the shark with one hand.

"He was making believe like he's dead, then he wiggled his whole body and tried to bite me. He didn't get it," Mironescu said.

A lifeguard since 1985, Mironescu has never dealt with a shark before.

After a relatively uneventful summer, the weekend was packed with sharks. A small one was seen at South Beach in Staten Island on Sunday, following the 5-foot thresher shark that startled swimmers at Rockaway Beach on Saturday before its lifeless body washed ashore the next day.

"We had a little bit of a punctuation mark at the end of summer with 'Jaws' junior showing up and frightening people," said Adrian Benepe, the city parks commissioner.

In all, about 16 million people visited New York City's beaches this season, and another 1.4 million splashed in its 52 outdoor pools.

At Coney Island, Joana Vasquez, 12, had mixed feelings about the end of summer.

"I'm happy to be starting school because I get to see my friends," she said. "I'm not happy because I don't get to go to the beach anymore."



And because that wasn't enough, The New York Post had yet another shark on record:

September 4, 2007 -- The "Jaws" drama in the Rockaways over the weekend nearly had a terrifying prequel - as a maneating mako shark was caught just a mile off the shore.

Two veteran fisherman reeled in the 200-pound predator after a nearly one-hour fight near the Rockaway reef.

"It was one tremendous, 51/2-foot shark," said John Doyle Sr., 62, who tied it to the side of the boat with pal Dennis Mannarino, 56.

"We fought this fish back and forth. It was a great fight."

Mannarino added, "He was nasty. He opened his mouth. That's when we really got nervous. He had about 300 teeth - fuhgeddaboutit!"

As news of Wednesday's mako catch spread, Rockaway lifeguards said they were told to keep an eye out in case any of its cousins made it closer to shore.

The Parks Department did not return a call for comment.

Meanwhile yesterday, a 14-inch sand shark was reeled in on Coney Island.

"Everybody got out when he caught that," said witness Smith Yanez.

New York Aquarium shark expert Hans Walters said he's not surprised that sharks are coming to coastal waters, but admitted that the ferocious mako is rare for this area.

"It is a little unusual to me that somebody caught a mako shark that close to shore," he said.

But Walters noted that while "those teeth could do a lot of damage," they are more likely to "bite people when they haul them into their boats."

A day after Doyle's catch, another pair of fishermen a mile from the beach reeled in a thresher shark similar in size to the one that gave beachgoers a scare when it washed ashore Saturday on Rockaway Beach. Saturday's shark returned to the beach the next day and died.

City swimmers shrugged off any dangers the thresher sharks might pose to them ever since news of the beached fish broke, but their opinions changed yesterday when they were told a mako was part of the mix.

"A mako shark? That's scary," said Maria Valez, who had been swimming with her two children, 8 and 11. "I'm going to start taking my kids to a pool."

Petra Petrano, 24, added, "I'm so glad summer's over. I don't want to swim with sharks."