On a cool March morning near the pier in Huntington Beach, dozens of surfers shook on boards, their feet hanging and toes wiggling in warmth, and a few yards behind them, staring as the fishing boat walked right outside the rest.
From the boat bow, I made eye contact with some of the surfers and shook them, but it was a little too far for them to hear when I cried out, “We’re tagging the great white sharks swimming around you!” ”
At least they didn’t listen because they didn’t do anything I did with that particular info. I try not to slowly turn the board, vibrate in panic through every fiber of my presence, or paddle like a maniac.
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1. Wave Surfers Bob near the pier in Huntington Beach as a nearby boy Great White Cruise. 2. Researchers prepare a spear and a tracking device and tag one of the sharks. 3. Tackle box on the deck of Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab Research Boat.
No one underwater, and the boaters, seemed particularly wary of that.
The boat belongs to the Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab and was crewed by marine biologists who documented the largest group of white people who have seen patrol the waters of one of America’s most famous and busiest surf breaks.
In just an hour, scientists discovered at least half a dozen boys’ great whites between five and seven feet. Researchers speared three of them to install electronic tracking devices for the size and shape of the cigar.
Such trackers, which allow batteries to last up to 10 years, have contributed to an astonishing number of discoveries about the behavior and movement patterns of many predators.
Shark Lab director Christopher G. Lowe said that a decade ago many of the apex predators swimming near people had warned their lifeguards to close the beach, forcing the great White’s reputation as a cold-in-law killing machine, as in the scene from the 1975 blockbuster Jaws.
Marine biologist Christopher G. Low pilots the boat as his team is searching for the great white shark off Huntington Beach.
But recently, he and his colleagues have said they have a pile of tracking data and endless drone footage showing a great white man as long as nine feet.
It happens almost every day somewhere in Southern California, Lowe said.
“It’s ignored because humans are like flotsams that are not threatening and not food,” Lowe said.
Lowe and other researchers learned that these young and great groups of whites use beaches in Southern California and Northern Baja California as nursery, moving up and down the coastline with the seasons, seeking warm water. They eat a wealth of stintrays, a true wildlife threat to Southland beach fans, but otherwise they care about their business.
Ryan Logan tags a large 6-foot white shark near the pier in Huntington Beach.
The surfer paddling in waters off the coast of Huntington Beach appears to be focusing on the waves rather than the big white man swimming around him.
The young shark stays at nursery for the first six years of his life, Lowe said. Shallow water helps protect them from large, richly eating sharks and killer whales, like crunchy horses, if they go too far into deep blue waters.
However, once sharks reach about 10 feet long and begin to develop the true taste of mammals, it is rare to see them near beaches in Southern California, Lowe said. That’s when they head to the Central Coast and the Northern California spots, a mass of seals gather.
“They’re trying to become adults,” Lowe said.
Lowe said young sharks would be willing to cram themselves into mammals that have died from other causes.
“It’s really hard to learn how to catch light prey like a healthy seal,” Lowe said.
But what about the troublesome gang prey, like humans who unconsciously enter nursery school?
“As scientists, I have to say we’re not just on the menu,” Lowe promised. It is rare that the great white bites a man, he said, that it was probably a mistake. “And sharks create a hell of mistakes that are far less than humans.”
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1. Near the surface just outside the surf break in Huntington Beach, there is the boy’s massive white sun. 2. Researchers chat with lifeguards on a boat patrol a body of water where surfers and sharks are mixed together in close proximity. 3. A lonely kite surfer squeals his head next to the sand blowing in Long Beach. (Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
It is one thing to hear it from a reliable source and accept it intellectually. When you are in the water with the great whites in the wild, restraining your instincts and controlling the mind of the race is another thing.
A few years ago, I was kitesurfing alone in Long Beach just before the sun set off my board. Stuck on a buoy hundreds of feet from the coast, landing a kit on the beach before swiming to get the board back.
As soon as my feet left the sea floor and I couldn’t feel anything underneath me anymore, I thought I had seen something flicker from the corner of my eyes. It disappeared in a flash, and I didn’t know what it was or whether it was even real.
And then the theme of “Jaws” began to play in my head.
I slowly gave way towards the board at first, but even as I tried to ignore it, “Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan” continued to grow.
The next morning, the sky on that beach was filled with news helicopters filming aerial footage of about half a dozen boys cruised around the buoys where my board was stuck. The lifeguard thrusts into the sand with signs “sharks are being spotted/entered at their own risk.” For several days, local kitesurfers were standing on the beach with their arms folded and wetsuits dried.
The newspaper narrative, which stated that the shark was probably too young to pose a serious threat, then began to circulate among the keyters. And the wind returned.
If the first brave souls to test their luck while others were watching from the coast had been eaten, it would have been a gloomy summer at Kite Beach. But he survived as was the case with the next person and everyone who followed, including myself.
It has become one of the best kitesurfing summers that anyone can remember. No one was bitten, and the shark ate so many rays. Almost no one was stabbed.
Collecting data showing that the great white boys are a big threat requires a lot of expertise and is not cheap. With the long boat maintenance, fuel and pay for researchers spending on water, and budget cuts looming at CSU, it makes you wonder how Row will continue to carry out important operations.
Researchers at the Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab launch the drone to get a bird’s-eye view of a large, dark shape that snakes through the surf zone.
On Sunday, researchers began by launching a drone from the boat’s pitching deck and taking in views of the large, dark-shaped bird-shaped eyes that snake loosely through the surf zone. When he spots it, Control’s Field Tech Anthony McGinnis hovered the drone about 30 feet above the shark, and Lowe used the drone as a beacon to lead the boat into the quarry.
As we approached, McGinnis called out which direction the shark was facing, and the rhode was relaxed from the throttle and allowed to slid quietly behind the shark. In almost every case they were barely moving on the surface and sunbathed in warm morning light.
Ryan Logan is essentially raising a poor fish in the name of science, dipping the camera into the water below, taking pictures of the shark’s genitals, essentially on a bow with a gopro attached to a long stick. He helps to know sex to see if men and women behave differently.
The sticks usually scared the sharks and darted a few yards away from the boat before settling down again.
At that time, we were sneaking up once more, while Logan was swinging a spear that looked like a Moby Dick character. He thrusts the blade into the thick muscle beneath the dorsal fin and attaches the tracking device.
Surprised sharks were clearly not used to being on the wrong end of the ambush, but they could dramatically violate the surface when blown away, then jump into muddy depths. But a few minutes later, we found them on the surface as if nothing had happened.
“People always ask if we’re hurting sharks,” Lowe said, gestures towards one of the newly tagged sunbathers. It wasn’t too stressed.
In fact, the most worrying thing that Row observed all day was the assortment of fishermen on the pier in Huntington Beach. Most people used light gear that was broken in heartbeat if they accidentally hooked one of the Great Whites, but sometimes they used a line that could hold 800 pounds.
“Then you have an animal that gets mad at the end of the line you’re trying to get away from. If someone goes in between, that’s how people get bitten,” Lowe said.
From left, researchers Ryan Logan, Christopher G. Lowe and Anthony McGinnis head out to find a great white guy near Huntington Beach before they arrive at the dock.
That’s exactly what happened on July 5, 2014, when a person fishing from a Manhattan Beach pier hooked a 7-foot boy, Great White. He kept the sharks on the line on the line for about 45 minutes as a group of ocean swimmers approached.
“The shark came out of the bottom of the water, thrust into me, biting a bit on my chest along my torso,” one of the swimmers, a 50-year-old real estate agent from Romita, told reporters. “I was making eye contact with this great white shark that was chewing on my chest.”
He was suffering horrific injuries and was bleeding profusely, but some very brave surfers took him to the shore and saved his life.
Even if science tells us that science is low risk, it shows that accidents can occur.
“And I don’t think anyone wants to have an accident,” Lowe said.
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