By Tyler Treadway

Stephen Schafer (photo by Thomas Winter)

STUART — The Feb. 3 shark attack that killed Stephen H. Schafer near Stuart Beach will be featured this summer as part of the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” — but a friend of the victim said it’s too soon for a graphic re-enactment of the tragedy.

Lindsay Schimer, an associate producer with Beanfield Productions in Miami, which is putting the show together with CBS News Productions, said Schafer’s fatal attack will be one of six shark attacks featured in “Day of the Shark III.”

Shark Week programs should air in late July or early August, Schimer said.

Producers interviewed Daniel Lund, the Martin County lifeguard who paddled into shark-infested water to try to save the 38-year-old kiteboarder, and Sam Mahoney, another lifeguard on the scene, Schimer said.

Grant Gilmore, a biologist who determined Schafer had been bitten by a bull shark, and Dr. Linda O’Neil, a 19th Circuit medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Schafer, also will be shown in interviews.

Schimer said the segment also will feature a re-enactment of Schafer’s attack and the attempted rescue.

“We’re kind of working around the actual attack and focusing more on the lifeguard’s (Lund’s) perspective,” Schimer said.

The re-enactment will be filmed in Hawaii rather than locally, Schimer said, because producers are concerned that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could reach South Florida waters.

None of the other shark attacks featured on the program — in South Africa, Australia, Hawaii and Louisiana — were fatalities.

Stephanie Forsberg of Stuart, a longtime friend of Schafer’s and an organizer of a memorial fund in his name, said because of the re-enactment, she won’t watch the program.

“I love the Discovery Channel,” Forsberg said, “but to do a re-enactment, and do it this soon, I don’t think they’re being very sensitive to this community, to Steve’s family and especially to his mother.”

Forsberg said she understood the “drama of Steve’s story will pull people in. I think they (the Discovery Channel) just wants to boost their ratings. This is just too soon for a lot of us.”

Forsberg said Schafer’s death “became a global story, but in a positive way; it brought a lot of people in this community and in the surfing and kite boarding communities together. Unless this show is going to emphasize safety and education, I don’t see how it’s going to have a positive effect. It certainly won’t be a positive for Steve’s family and friends.”

For more on sharks, whales, other marine attacks, please visit www.PalmBeachPost.com/go/sharks

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