While this might sound like the start to another horror movie \u2014 especially with more sharks and more people seeking respite in the ocean amid record-breaking heat waves<\/a> and a looming El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> \u2014 there is good news. A new study shows that even though sharks react to human noises, they often can tell from just our splashing that we\u2019re not worth the nibble.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are dozens \u2014 if not potentially hundreds \u2014 of encounters daily at a beach with a lot of sharks and people. Why aren\u2019t people being bitten? How do we explain this?\u201d said Chris Lowe, director of the celebrated Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach. \u201cWe worked our way through all the different senses that a shark could use to go, \u2018that\u2019s a person,\u2019 and we thought sound and vibration might be the most influential one.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers with the Shark Lab at the California State University, Long Beach have found that sharks and humans swim together at some California beaches more often than previously thought.<\/p>\n (Jake Miller)<\/p>\n For years, Lowe and his lab have documented white sharks getting very close to people<\/a> in the water. The shark\u2019s approach is never rushed or aggressive \u2014 it\u2019s more like something piques the shark\u2019s curiosity from dozens of feet away, and then as the shark creeps in closer to investigate, it loses interest and just swims on.<\/p>\n The Shark Lab eliminated sight (limited horizontal visibility) and odor (disperses too quickly in water) as the reason a shark might react from so far away. So the researchers started looking into sounds and vibrations, which can travel quite far underwater. (Sharks also have enlarged \u201cmacula neglecta,\u201d or sensory hair cells, in their inner ears, which make them exceptionally more sensitive to the direction where a sound is coming from.)<\/p>\n In a first-of-its-kind study, the lab designed a hearing test of sorts for sharks. Using a special multichannel hydrophone that can capture not only sounds but also the 3D movement of them, scientists methodically recorded themselves doing three common ocean activities: freestyle swimming, kayaking and paddling on a surfboard.<\/p>\n They then played back the \u201csound bites\u201d at different distances underwater and observed whether a shark would change its angle and move toward the speaker.<\/p>\n This study is ongoing, but the preliminary findings are striking: Sharks clearly can differentiate the three water activities, and it\u2019s also clear that the louder, more erratic sound characteristics of freestyle swimming (which happen to be in the same frequency range as the sounds of a struggling fish) can make a shark more likely to approach from a distance.<\/p>\n CSULB Shark Lab researchers tag a juvenile great white shark off the California coast. <\/p>\n (Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab)<\/p>\n With paddling on a surfboard, the sharks clearly could recognize the sound, but they more often tuned it out like background noise. And the gentle, more continuous sounds of kayaking elicited little reaction, said Whitney Jones, who led and designed the study.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first study to empirically show that they seem to be using sound to cue into people at these greater distances,\u201d said Jones, who specializes in underwater acoustics and behavioral biology. \u201cWe have so much anecdotal evidence that these juvenile white sharks are habituating to people in the area just by growing up around them, but this is one of the first steps to showing that empirically.\u201d<\/p>\n As for how these initial findings can translate into beachgoing tips, that depends on what feels too close to comfort. The sound of swimming is more likely to attract a curious shark, so if you want extra peace of mind, go into the ocean with a group of people. A cluster of loud humans is an even clearer indication to a shark that you are not any kind of species they would eat. <\/p>\n (Also avoid wearing flashy jewelry, which a shark could mistake for fish scales, or swimming in murky water, which increases the chances of startling a shark. And if you\u2019re kayaking, think twice before bringing fish on board.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to remember that sharks require a strong dose of caution, but the chance of being bitten \u2014 as long you don\u2019t provoke them<\/a> \u2014 is incredibly low. Last year, there were only 65 unprovoked shark bites<\/a> across the entire world.<\/p>\n Out on Cape Cod, another great white hot spot, Jaida Elcock, a shark biologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution\u2019s Marine Predators Group, said the more data, the better when it comes to dispelling our society\u2019s collective misunderstanding of sharks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t let fear get in the way of respect,\u201d said Elcock, who co-founded the nonprofit Minorities in Shark Sciences<\/a> and runs @soFISHtication_<\/a>, a popular animal-facts page on Instagram<\/a> and TikTok<\/a>. \u201cSharks can tell us a lot about the health of our oceans, and there\u2019s so much more to learn from them.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, at more than 400 million years old, sharks have outlived five mass extinctions and could teach us a thing or two about surviving in a changing climate. It\u2019s also worth noting that there are more than 500 species of sharks, and none of them eat humans. (The largest shark in the world, the whale shark, is actually a filter feeder and couldn\u2019t swallow you even if it tried.)<\/p>\n \u201cSharks can be found in every type of ocean ecosystem \u2014 they\u2019re deep sea, they\u2019re in shallow reefs, there\u2019s even an arctic shark,\u201d Elcock said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t even fully understand how they function in the world the way it is now, it is going to be even harder for us to understand how those vital parts of our ecosystems will function as the ocean continues to change.\u201d<\/p>\n In other sharky news<\/p>\n The Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach actually is running out of funding and in danger of shutting down a significant portion of its operation by September, as my colleague Kori McNair reports here<\/a>. The lab had received a $3.75-million state grant in 2018 to run the California Shark Beach Safety Program<\/a> for five years.<\/p>\n If comedy\u2019s your thing, there will be a special show<\/a> on Friday at the Hollywood Improv, where \u201ccomedians will take on iconic scary movies in a special pro shark, pro conservation\u201d edition of Horror Nerd,<\/a> hosted by comedian Samantha Hale. The evening will be dedicated to the Shark Lab. <\/p>\n And for \u201cShark Week<\/a>\u201d fans, Mark Kennedy at the Associated Press breaks down some of this year\u2019s highlights<\/a>, which include a feature off the Korean Peninsula with Rei Ami, whose voice helped fuel the hit movie<\/a> \u201cKPop Demon Hunters.\u201d<\/p>\n One more thing<\/p>\n The Honolulu Museum of Art will be doing a special screening<\/a> on Saturday, Aug. 22, of \u201cOut of Plain Sight<\/a>,\u201d the documentary I directed with Daniel Straub. The film is a cinematic expansion of my reporting on the legacy of DDT and toxic waste dumping<\/a> off the coast of Southern California, and I am grateful to see this film resonating with audiences across the world. (We recently received a special jury citation<\/a> from AFO\u2019s International Festival of Science Documentary Films in the Czech Republic, and the film has been awarded some of the highest honors in environmental filmmaking, including the Jackson Wild Media Award for best investigative film<\/a>.) <\/p>\n The screening starts at 6:30 p.m., and I will be there with the University of Hawai\u2019i at M\u0101noa\u2019s Institute for Sustainability and Resilience<\/a>, as well as the university\u2019s Better Tomorrow Speaker Series <\/a>and Punahou School\u2019s Davis Democracy Initiative<\/a>. Come say hello!<\/p>\n This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.<\/a> <\/p>\n For more coastal and ocean stories, follow @rosanna.xia <\/a>and @outofplainsightfilm<\/a> on Instagram.<\/p>\n ![\"Researchers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785427510_177_.jpeg\")
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