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A white shark propels underwater near a beach in Monterey Bay.<\/p>\n
Chase Dekker Wild-Life Images\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Southern California\u2019s waters appear to\u00a0be teeming<\/a> this spring with white sharks<\/a>, drawing the attention of fishers<\/a>, surfers<\/a> and biologists. A reportedly\u00a0aggressive<\/a> 10-foot shark off Huntington Beach led to a partial ocean closure and the postponement of a professional surf competition on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n State experts explain that\u00a0the extreme marine heat<\/a> wave baking the Pacific Ocean likely prompted baby white sharks to arrive in February, at least a month earlier than normal, and that older and bigger sharks are now starting to follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year about this time, females are coming back from their open ocean migrations to give birth somewhere in Southern California, and then those baby white sharks show up at our beaches,\u201d Chris Lowe, the director of Cal State Long Beach\u2019s Shark Lab, told SFGATE. \u201cWhat made this year unusual is that we started seeing newborns in February, which is really early. Normally, it starts in April and peaks in July.\u201d<\/p>\n A white shark swims near the Farallon Islands, north of San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n ullstein bild\/Getty Images<\/p>\n With a forecast El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> expected to drive ocean temperatures even higher later this year, Lowe has been spreading the word about white sharks, colloquially known as great whites: \u201cWe think it\u2019s going to be a sharky summer.\u201d In 2015, he observed a similarly early pupping season followed by an uptick in juvenile white sharks \u2014 which range up to about 6 years old and 10 feet long \u2014 gliding up to their so-called nurseries in Southern California from winter habitat in Baja. That was during the infamous \u201cblob<\/a>\u201d of warm water, which\u00a0mirrors today\u2019s\u00a0marine heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2015, we saw a bunch of babies really early, and then the number of sharks just kept increasing over the course of the summer,\u201d Lowe said. He added: \u201cThe water got really warm, and some of our tagging studies have shown white sharks don\u2019t like water temperatures above 78 degrees. \u2026 It pushed all those young sharks out of Baja into Southern California.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n This spring, the young white sharks are already congregating in the waters off Orange County, Los Angeles County and Santa Barbara County. However, they\u2019re not off San Diego, potentially because the water is too warm there already, Lowe said.<\/p>\n FILE: Warning signs for shark sightings stick in the sand in Long Beach on May 16, 2017.<\/p>\n FREDERIC J. BROWN\/Frederic J. Brown\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n That\u2019s a break from the past several years in Del Mar, where a high numbers of youngsters floated near shore, according to\u00a0Brice Semmens, a marine biologist for Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Semmens described that it\u2019s a good spot for the sharks to eat stingrays\u00a0\u2014 since they\u2019re too young to eat mammals\u00a0\u2014 enjoy the warm water and hide from predators like killer whales.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe might expect to see them showing up here, but instead, most of the nursery activity is happening more off LA,\u201d Semmens told SFGATE. \u201cWe\u2019re not seeing them right now. But in Del Mar, who knows what will happen as the spring and summer continues to evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n The northeastern Pacific white shark population seems to be\u00a0increasing overall.<\/a> While juvenile sharks linger off Southern California, the bigger adults venture farther north to hunt bigger prey. In the Pacific, their full range includes<\/a> the waters between Mexico, California, Alaska and Hawaii.<\/p>\n The warmer waters in Southern California this year might also attract greater numbers of other species, such as tiger, bull and\u00a0hammerhead<\/a> sharks.<\/p>\n For surfers, divers and anyone else spending significant time in the ocean, Lowe suggested abiding by basic best practices: avoid dawn and dusk, traveling alone, seal rookeries, murky water\u00a0\u2014 and get out if you get a creepy feeling.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Still, shark bites<\/a> are pretty rare in California. There were fewer than 250 encounters from 1950 to 2022 between humans and all species of sharks, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Of those run-ins<\/a>, fewer than 20 were fatal.<\/p>\n The Shark Lab, founded in 1966, formed a California shark beach safety program<\/a> in 2018 to address growing white shark sightings. The lab has active transmitters on 240 sharks right now, tracking their movements along the coast. Based on how prevalent it turns out the sharks are in popular recreational waters, beaches now typically just post signs about shark activity instead of closing, Lowe said. A 2023 study<\/a> from Shark Lab researchers using drones showed that 97% of the days sharks swam off a beach, people were there, too; yet, only one shark bite was reported over the two-year observation period.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to put things in perspective,\u201d Lowe said. \u201cDespite the fact that there are more sharks and more people in the water, we don\u2019t see an increase in bites. So for me, a biologist and a person who deals with statistics, we\u2019re just not on the menu. Accidents might happen, but they are incredibly rare.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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