Despite intense media attention generated by shark attacks on humans, such incidents are fairly rare along the U.S. Pacific Coast, with 154 unprovoked attacks authenticated off California since 1900, according to the Shark Research Committee.

Thirteen fatal shark attacks on people have been documented in California during the past 60 years , with the two most recent of those, in October 2010 and October 2012, occurring at Vandenberg's Surf Beach, the group said.

"More people are killed by toasters than by sharks," said Shark Research Institute archivist Marie Levine. "Every creature is born with a menu in its brain. ... Humans are not part of a shark's menu."

On the opposite U.S. coast, two women escaped unharmed after a great white shark attacked their kayak in the waters off Manomet Point in Plymouth, Massachusetts, earlier this month.

In July, a great white hooked by fishermen on a pier bit a swimmer along Southern California coast near Manhattan Beach when the man inadvertently swam into the struggling shark. The man survived with lacerations to his torso.

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Beaches in California closed after surfer injured in shark attack