Surfers and beachgoers may find unexpected company in the ocean this season — and the new friends have about six fins and 50 rows of teeth.
Baby Shark Season has officially begun off the Southern California coast due to warmer waters, Dr. Chris Lowe, professor and director of the California State University, Long Beach Shark Lab, said. This means more sharks will be seen near the shore as pups are born.
According to Live Science, 100 million sharks are killed each year. Lowe said sharks are necessary for a healthy marine ecosystem, and it is up to civilians to not harm the sharks.
The Daily 49er spoke with Lowe about Baby Shark Season, and provided some advice on what people should do in order to keep themselves and the sharks out of harm.
Can you explain what baby shark season is?
Southern California is a nursery for most of our sharks in the Northeast Pacific. So, blue sharks, mako sharks, thresher sharks, salmon sharks and even white sharks use the Southern California bite in that area from northern Baja to Santa Barbara as the place where they come give birth. We have a really important responsibility to take care of the nursery for white sharks.
How does baby shark season affect the coast?
Our stretch of coastline is probably one of the most productive nurseries on the west coast, and this is one of the reasons why all those mom sharks come back to give birth to their babies here. We’re important stewards to take care of this nursery. We’ve done a good job at doing that because we better manage our fisheries now, which has allowed shark populations to come back in California, and that even includes white sharks. Our questions are, why do they like certain beaches? What makes Santa Monica Bay so special, or Ventura or Dana Point? One of the things we’ve found is that they may spend their entire first summer there. In the winter, when water temperatures get cold, they might migrate all the way to Baja.
If people encounter sharks at the beach, what should they do?
It’s actually really cool if you get to see a shark. Think about it, we overfished all of these animals about 50 years ago and they’re finally starting to come back. The opportunity to see a shark in the wild is a really cool experience. What people have to remember is that these are babies. Their moms give birth to them and they’re on their own, trying to find food. For the most part, they feed on things like stingrays, which are really abundant along the coast. The least thing they’re interested in is people. In fact, they’re probably scared of people because, for the most part, we’re bigger than they are.
If someone did encounter a shark and it became a dangerous situation, what should that person do?
The thing that people have to remember is that they’re still wild animals. If you see a shark and the shark starts acting aggressive, such as it starts coming towards you or it starts increasing its speed, it’s telling you something. It’s telling you that you’re in its space and you should probably back off. The best thing to do is to keep your eyes on the shark and slowly swim or paddle back to shore. If you do that, chances are you’ll be fine.
How can people make sure that they don’t endanger the lives of the baby sharks that are near the shore?
One of the things [researchers] are concerned with is that the white shark population is increasing and we’re seeing more and more babies along our beaches as the years go by. But we’re putting more and more people in the water, so the chances of us interacting with the sharks go up. If a fisherman catches a shark, they are legally required to let them go. It’s illegal to catch and kill a white shark. If a fisherman catches one, all they have to do is cut the line, the hook will rod out and the shark will be fine. They are at risk, though. We want their populations to grow because they serve a very important role in California waters. Our marine mammal populations have exploded. We have more sea lions than there probably have ever been along our coast. White sharks are a really important predator for keeping those sea lion populations healthy. We need those sharks in our oceans. Killing the babies is only going to hurt our ability to have a healthy ocean in California.