Great White Shark Caught on Video Is Likely a Local

• Great Whites Are Demonized in Most of the Viral Postings

BY ANNE SOBLE

BENIGN ENCOUNTER—A standup paddleboarder filmed a pair of white sharks as curious about him as he was about them. His video went viral and soon became “Surfer Battles for His Life,” “Sharks Attack Surfer,” “Close Call with Killers,” and every erroneous stereotype spawned by the movie “Jaws.”

Two juvenile white sharks were filmed late last week off the San Onofre nuclear power plant.by Chuck Patterson on board a standup paddleboard and the video went viral on the Internet.

The larger juvie measured nine feet or so, which sounds menacing until one realizes that it is still in the fish-eating stage and has not progressed to the staple of great white cuisine—plump pinnipeds.

This isn’t all that surprising to most Malibuites, as they know the local waters have long been ideal great white nursery habitat, probably since well before the arrival of the first humans.

Sightings of young-of-the-year sharks and juveniles occur often, and even when they are not seen, no one should assume they are not out there. Except when demonized in exploitive movies, they pose little danger, except to the fish, rays and smaller sharks that help them grow.

Ralph Collier’s Shark Research Committee website regularly chronicles regional sightings. One of the latest took place at Sunset Beach on Aug.13, when a pilot was flying a helicopter reconnaissance mission with a 33-foot companion vessel.

Collier says the pilot documented the presence of three great white sharks 200-to-300 yards off the beach and photographed them. The pilot said one of the sharks was about 12 feet in length and the other two were an estimated 16 feet in length.

As impressive as these larger sharks were, one of the smaller sharks filmed by the paddleboarder offers a more interesting tale with a possible Malibu angle.

Ken Peterson, the communications director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium announced that it’s likely the animal that the paddleboarder videotaped is one that MBA researchers tagged in Southern California waters, most likely at Malibu, when the floating holding pen was set up off Point Dume.

If one closely watches the paddleboarding video, they can see a yellow-green object on the shark’s left side that Peterson indicates “is most likely the leader left behind when the shark’s electronic tag popped free.” 

These two sharks are also more representative of the animals in the Malibu area, as the local waters are too warm for most adult whites.

In addition, the adults prefer elephant seals as their plat du jour, but the possibility that they mistakenly nibble on a human—in wetsuits, they look quite pinnipedish—is not likely to be an endearing experience.

Collier is concerned that laws protecting the pinniped population will increase their numbers and bring adult whites closer to the shoreline, but that does not appear to be borne out yet by the low numbers of adverse encounters that occur.

Indeed, despite the hypothesis that whites are never that far from the local  coast, the paucity of attacks—mistaken identity or not—is surprising.

Of course, anthropomorphists might argue that not only do sharks not relish humans as prey, but the animals have also learned that humans are their biggest threat.

Since there is no shortage of pinnipeds farther out at sea, especially the robust elephant seals that help the adult whites’ grow to over 20 feet, there appears to be little likelihood that the number of adverse encounters will increase in the future.

Indeed, humans take a much greater toll on the great white population that the sharks take on them.

The need to project the species continues to rank high on the marine science research agenda, as scientists stress the need to educate people on the important role of the great white shark in the marine environment.