Global Courant
If you recently swam off the coast of Santa Barbara or San Diego, chances are you’ve had company. You may not have noticed.
A new study from Cal State Long Beach found that juvenile white sharks are more common on some California beaches than previously thought.
While the news may conjure up images of Steven Spielberg’s movie “Jaws,” scientists say it should instead be a reminder of how rare shark bites are.
“It’s not just about sharks, it’s about people,” said Christopher Lowe, Cal State Long Beach professor of marine biology and director of the school. Shark Lab, a statement said. “This study may change people’s perceptions of the risk sharks pose to people who share the ocean with them.”
During the two-year study, researchers used drones to study more than two dozen beaches along the California coast.
Juvenile white sharks, aged between 1 and 5 years, were found in two sites in southern Santa Barbara County and central San Diego County.
At those locations, sharks and humans swam together 97% of the time, according to findings released Friday.
“The young white sharks were often sighted within 50 yards of where the waves break, bringing surfers and stand-up paddle boarders the closest they can get to sharks at the staging areas,” Patrick Rex, a lab technician at the Shark Lab, said in a statement. . “Most of the time, water users didn’t even know the sharks were there, but we could easily spot them from the air.”
In an interview with The Times, Rex called the findings surprising.
“People think, ‘If I see a shark in the lineup (the area where waves start to break), I’m going to get bitten or I’m in danger.'” Rex said. “And what we’ve seen is that’s not necessarily the case.”
The fish “mostly mind their own business,” Rex said.
“And they get within 10 feet of people, and that happens on a daily basis,” he said. “What we found is that they spend most of their time within 100 meters of where the waves are breaking.”
That is a lot closer than originally thought.
“Sharks were assumed to be miles away, but you could wade in and then have a shark swim right next to you,” he said.
No shark bites were reported on any of the beaches observed during the two-year survey. According to the State Department of Fish and Wildlife, there were 209 documented shark incidents in California between 1950 and November 2022.
This new data could be used by lifeguards, especially those at staging areas, to ensure safe swimming and water recreation, Lowe said.
The young sharks gather at the staging areas for several years and feast on stingrays and small fish on the seabed.
Exactly why sharks are so uninterested in snacking on humans is still a mystery, Rex said. Even when hunting, they tend to ignore what is happening on the surface.
Rex and Lowe hypothesize that the sharks are beginning to identify humans as “not food”.
“But that’s such a hard conclusion because we still don’t really know why sharks bite people,” Rex said.
Yet people don’t seem to be on the menu.
That could be a blessing, as the fish seem to stay along the California coast for extended periods of time.
“What we’ve been telling people for the past 20 years is that the sharks will be here in the summer and then when our water gets too cold, they’ll migrate to Mexico,” Rex said.
But the study found that some sharks never left.
Climate change and warmer waters could be the reason, Rex said.
“It means the sharks may not be migrating for as long anymore,” Rex said. “But we need more data and more time to draw conclusions on that.”
