Shark experts and observers have noticed unusual activity in California this spring. Photo: Oleksandr Sushko//Unsplash
Abnormally warm waters and an incoming El Niño have led to an early shark season in California, and will likely lead to a summer of increased shark activity, an expert says.
Chris Lowe, director of California State University Long Beach’s shark lab, told NBC Los Angeles that there are already signs of irregular shark activity.
“We started seeing baby white sharks about four, four-and-a-half feet long about a month ago, which is really early,” Lowe told NBCLA. “Now the simple explanation to that is, the water is really warm right now, unusually warm for this time of year. Based on (El Niño and a marine heat wave) we predict it’s going to be a sharky summer.”
“We’re not food,” Lowe assured viewers. “We’re not a threat. So we’re just something to ignore.”
Carlos Gauna, a cinematographer who films sharks for his social media channels, corroborated Lowe’s observations.
“This year, there’s been a big uptick in sharks,” Gauna told NBCLA.
“Over the last few weeks, I’ve been documenting white shark activity from the air and along the shoreline — and what I’m seeing right now is very different from years past,” Gauna added on his YouTube page.
Finding sharks with a drone is so common for Gauna that he maintains a steady flow of shark content on his social media channels. Two days ago, he filmed a great white swimming past surfers from Santa Monica pier to Topanga.
Last week, a two-mile section of Newport Beach was closed for an afternoon after a shark circled a surfer.
The unseasonably warm waters are likely to persist as forecasts predict a particularly strong “Godzilla” El Niño. In the northeast Pacific, off the coast of the western U.S., El Niño conditions typically lead to warmer water, a more southerly storm track, and abundant precipitation. However, experts note that these events have been getting hard to predict due to climate change, which has shifted the storm track further to the north.
