So does the surgeon who helped to repair the damage to Genant’s left hand, which had the pinkie and part of the ring finger sheared off in the incident of Keawakapu Beach.
Which is why Genant is more than annoyed that some people on Maui are intent on spreading a rumor that he was the victim of a turtle, suggesting that he had been harassing the animal.
It was a shark.
“Absolutely, 100 percent, beyond the shadow of a doubt,” said Dr. Peter Galpin, a physician with as much experience treating shark bites as anybody in Hawaii.
“I have no idea how things like this get started. But I’d like to be part of a process that puts a stop to it,” said marine biologist George Balazs, who actually has been bitten by green sea turtles more than once.
Balazs is leader of the Marine Turtle Research Program at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu.
He is also the man who compiled the first thorough listing of shark attacks in Hawaii, and he is the reporter for new attacks to the International Shark Attack Registry in Florida.
So when the rumor reached him several weeks ago, he was concerned on several levels.
Scientifically, because he had already reported the shark attack to the registry, and if that was incorrect he wanted to correct it.
Second, because it impugned the character of Genant, 29, a co-founder of Better Deals LLC, an Internet marketing business in San Diego.
Third, because it was bad publicity for turtles.
Genant himself was amazed to hear the story and upset by it.
“I’m taking it a little personally, questioning, was there something about my story or something I had said (to reporters/interviewers) that didn’t sound believable, therefore causing local community to discredit my account and not accept it altogether?” he wrote Balazs.
On the other hand, Genant said he doesn’t need any more publicity, and he is getting along fine despite the wound.
He is following the shark bite news from Maui carefully, and there’s been plenty since that day in December.
Since the Dec. 22 attack, there have been at least four reports of individuals encountering sharks in waters off South Maui, with the most recent being a Kihei girl standing in shallow water at Oneloa Beach at Makena suffering a bite on her calf.
“I cannot believe there aren’t more fatalities,” said Genant, now that he knows what it’s like to be bitten.
Balazs said a Hawaii green turtle or hawksbill could bite a human or “anything else that molested it.” However, “they do not go out seeking people or other things to bite, unless the ’other things’ are their natural food sources – mainly seaweed for greens and sponges for hawksbills.”
If bothered, turtles either swim away or hide under a rock ledge.
If restrained, they can bite.
“But the bites do not shear through bone,” said Balazs. “They may take some flesh but far more often they bruise or pinch or make cuts/abrasions. They crush.”
Photographs taken of Genant’s injury before his hand was cleaned up and stitched up at Maui Memorial Medical Center clearly show that five to six inches along the side of the palm and the top half of the ring finger were sheared off. The cut along the side of the hand is not straight across, but serrated – as might be expected of a bite by a shark.
Both Galpin and Balazs say it is inconceivable that the injuries were the result of a turtle.
Genant said last week that he knows he cannot do anything about people spreading rumors, but he wants it on record that it was a shark.
“If the shark had taken anything other than part of my hand, I probably wouldn’t have been able to cut off the blood flow – as I did, using the other hand – and kick back to shore. I feel quite fortunate that it wasn’t any worse than it was and very grateful – to the shark and to fate – to still be here.”