National coverage of recent shark attacks at Oak Island and Ocean Isle Beach has set phones to ringing in local government and vacation rentals offices, but so far, future visitors don’t seem to be cancelling their seaside vacation plans because of the incidents.

Reports of two separate bites Sunday and a less severe one last Thursday were broadcast on such national networks as CNN and Fox, while local news outlets across the country picked up the story as well.

“We’ve gotten a couple of inquiries but nothing substantive,” Karen Brake, property manager with Margaret Rudd & Associates in Oak Island, said Monday. “Beaches are pulls, but we’re a vacation place with other things to do that don’t involve going in the water.”

The first attack, on a 12-year-old girl, severed part of the girl's arm and caused tissue damage to a leg, according to WECT television. The second attack, according to New Hanover Regional Medical Center, severed a 16-year-old boy's arm just below the shoulder.

Monday afternoon, New Hanover Regional Medical Center officials announced that the boy's condition has been upgraded to “good.”

The 16-year-old male, who with Sunday’s other victim was brought to the hospital, was in critical condition when he arrived. The Colorado resident improved to fair condition after surgery and has improved since then, the hospital’s news release stated.

Spokeswoman Claire Parker said she had no information about the status of the second victim, a 12-year-old girl from Asheboro.

The incidents, and the national attention they drew from national media over the weekend, come early in this year's summer tourism season. Those who work in the local hospitality industry said they were keeping an eye on whether there will be an impact for  beach visitors but had not seen an immediate drop-off.

Sloan Realty in nearby Ocean Isle Beach, where a separate incident Thursay left a teenager with lacerations on her foot, has gotten “some calls,” but no cancellations of beach home rentals, according to office manager Becky Whitley.

Brake said her agency is trying to provide its renters with personal safety tips on hazards ranging from sharks to sunburn to rip tides.

The town of Oak Island is involved as well, according to town manager Tim Holloman.

“We’re getting information out to rental agencies on how to avoid shark attacks,” he said Monday.

Holloman, who said his office is getting some calls from concerned vacationers, said that local officials are emphasizing just how rare shark bites are in the area. He also said that the sharks were “unusually close” to the beach when they bit the two teens: just 90 to 100 feet offshore.

As of Monday early afternoon, the Wilmington and Beaches Convention and Visitors Center had received only one phone call from a concerned future visitor.

“This was a man from out of state who has booked a vacation rental later in July and asked if there were any beach closings,” CVB spokeswoman Shawn Braden said Monday.

“We continue to emphasize that these were unprovoked shark attacks and that our New Hanover County beaches are life-guard-protected, and that we are monitoring conditions,” Braden said.

Those conditions may reflect recent weather, Peggy Sloan, director of the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher, said Monday afternoon.

"We've had days and days of wind, which stirs up the sediment and makes the water murkier," she said, adding that these conditions are excellent for hungry bait fish, but also mean that sharks can't see as well as they follow the fish.

"The sharks are always there," Sloan said. "We tell people, 'Don't be scared; be aware.' If you see signs of feeding activity, such as birds diving for food, be careful."

Dave Baker, director of Wrightsville Beach’s ocean rescue unit, said -- like Holloman -- that shark attacks in area waters are rare. “Annually, world-wide, an average of 12 people die in shark encounters. More than that die in car accidents, but do we stop driving?” he said Monday.

It’s too soon to know what, if any, effect the widespread news of the incidents will have on tourism, Baker said, but he predicted that people will still go in the water. When interviewed, he had just finished his daily inspection of conditions along the Wrightsville Beach shoreline and reported that people were out on the beach in numbers that were pretty normal for a Monday in the summer.