There are extra sharks within the water off the coast of Southern California than ever sooner than, in line with the Cal State Lengthy Seashore Shark Lab. In general, the staff tagged 38 sharks – greater than triple the quantity the director of the lab and his group had been ready to tag remaining 12 months, CBS Los Angeles studies.
“This was once a large 12 months,” stated Dr. Chris Lowe, director of the lab, which research marine animals. “So, even with COVID, we tagged extra sharks this 12 months than we now have every other 12 months.”
“And the aggregations had been higher and stayed round longer than they’ve previous years,” he stated.
Lowe tweeted his remarkable findings and shared drone video of the nice white small children and juveniles swimming all alongside SoCal seashores from San Diego to Santa Barbara.
“This 12 months there have been simply extra sharks round,” he stated. “And the query is why.”
Lowe is finding out the behavior of significant white sharks to offer protection to them and people. However with social distancing and restricted lab time, he has needed to ship fewer personnel out to tag the sharks and was once amazed that they discovered such a lot of sharks nonetheless swimming within the area.
“Most often in our fall when our water temperature will get to the low sixties, that appears to be a cue that drives them emigrate south to Baja,” he stated. “And to this point, right here we’re mid-October, and the sharks are nonetheless sticking round. Perhaps 2020 goes to be a year-round shark season.”
However in spite of the higher shark presence, surfers in Huntington Seashore stated they had been going to take their probabilities within the water.
“Normally they do not worm you, however it is nonetheless more or less sketchy that Jaws and all his friends are within the water,” Gary Winthorpe stated.
“I am not too anxious concerning the sharks,” Kiana Harpstrite stated. “I believe like in Huntington there hasn’t been an assault in such a lot of years, and they do not in reality come shut sufficient to hassle any individual.”
“It does concern me, however I imply, I like browsing,” Cole Wannemacher stated. “I might do anything else to surf, so I don’t believe anything else goes to prevent me from browsing.”
Lowe has 120 underwater listening stations from San Luis Obispo to San Diego that observe sharks, with the intention to work out the place they are going and why. The stations additionally supply an early caution machine for lifeguards so they may be able to inform the ones within the waters that sharks are close to.