Marine Heatwave Drives Elevated Encounters; Officials Issue Closures; Sharks Issue No Comment

From Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA — State wildlife officials confirmed Tuesday that shark activity along Southern California beaches is running at levels that officials describe as “elevated” and that the sharks describe as, presumably, normal, because they are sharks and do not distinguish between average and elevated activity levels in the way that beachgoing humans do.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which released its May 2026 calendar of events this week, noted that a marine heatwave in the Pacific Ocean is fueling unusually high shark presence along the coast even before the official summer season. Beaches from Santa Barbara to San Diego have seen increased encounters, prompting closures at several breaks and the specific kind of media coverage that drives up shark-related Google searches by approximately 4,000 percent while having a negligible effect on actual shark behavior.

How Sharks Are Responding to the Coverage

Sharks are not responding to the coverage, because they cannot read, which is a fact that the state’s beach closure communications implicitly assume is not widely understood by the surfing public, given that some closure signs include the phrase “Please be advised that sharks have been observed in this area” as if the sharks might also read the sign and adjust their plans accordingly.

“I appreciate that the county is communicating,” said Petra Sundstrom, 26, of Redondo Beach, reading a beach closure sign at Manhattan Beach on Monday. “My question is whether the shark also got this memo or whether we’re putting up notices for our own comfort.”

The lifeguard who overheard this question said it was “a fair point.”

The Marine Heatwave Context

The Pacific marine heatwave driving the elevated shark activity has pushed water temperatures above seasonal averages at several points along the Southern California coast, which has concentrated the baitfish that concentrate the sharks that concentrate the lifeguards that concentrate the beach closure signs that concentrate the media coverage that concentrates the surfers who want to know whether they can still go out.

The answer, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, is: it depends on the beach and the day and the specific closure status. The answer, according to most Southern California surfers, is: yes, probably, but bring someone who swims slower than you.

Dr. Finn Cormorant, Marine Ecologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said the heatwave’s effect on shark distribution was “significant but not unprecedented” and that Southern California’s proximity to white shark nursery areas in the Channel Islands meant that elevated activity in spring and early summer was “a regular feature of the ecosystem that humans have chosen to share.”

The Beach Closure Debate

The beach closure protocols triggered by shark observations vary by county and have produced a debate in the surfing community between the faction that believes closures are appropriate precautions and the faction that believes closures are an overreach by officials who overestimate their authority over a sport practiced in the territory of an apex predator that was here first.

“The ocean is the shark’s house,” said Remy Coastline, 38, of Hermosa Beach. “We knocked. The shark answered. We’re going in anyway. The sign is for people who expected a different house.”

Coastline acknowledged that this framing placed all moral responsibility on the surfer, which was, he said, fine.

What Actually Reduces Risk

Wildlife officials recommend avoiding surfing at dawn and dusk, avoiding areas near seal and sea lion colonies, and not surfing with open wounds. They do not recommend talking to the shark, making eye contact with the shark, or explaining to the shark that you have been surfing this break for fifteen years. Officials note that the shark is aware of none of this and will remain unaware regardless of how firmly it is communicated.

More wildlife satire: NewsThump.

The beach closure debate also touches on a philosophical question about risk communication that the public health community has been wrestling with for decades: how do you communicate a risk that is real but low, to an audience that has a high tolerance for that specific risk, without either understating the risk or triggering the specific human response of ignoring a risk that feels overstated? The shark closure signs are not wrong. The sharks are there. The risk is elevated above baseline. It is also still, statistically, quite small. The surfer who paddles out past a shark closure sign is making a bet that the statistics support and that the sign does not recommend. Both the sign and the surfer are being accurate about different things. The ocean contains both the shark and the wave and does not choose between them on the surfer’s behalf.

The Southern California surf community continues to absorb, adapt, and carry on — through mediocre swells, regulatory frameworks, shark closures, parking apps, and wave pool openings — with the specific equanimity of people who have chosen to base a significant portion of their identity on an activity that the ocean controls and they do not. The ocean does not read the legislation, check the parking app, or acknowledge the renaissance. It produces what it produces. The surfers show up early. This has always been the arrangement and neither party has proposed changing it.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/