If a shark approaches you, stay calm, try to avoid direct eye contact, and slowly move towards the beach
With recent reports of a great white shark biting an ocean swimmer in Del Mar in early June, a fisherman briefly catching but losing hold of a baby shark off the Malibu Pier last year, and, of course, the ever-present George, a legendary local shark whom many surfers frequently spot in Malibu waters, locals were not too surprised when a largerpresumably juvenile shark was spotted near the pier last week.
The shark, estimated to be 10 to 12 feet long, just did its thing — swimming in circles about 3 feet deep, leaving visitors aghast and excited.
“Great White Sharks near Los Angeles are a real thing,” posted the highly respected Carlos Gauna @themalibuartist whose filmmaking work has been published in National Geographic, the Discovery channel and such, when one was spotted under the Malibu Pier last year. “I followed one from Malibu to Santa Monica recently. Very interesting how many I’ve been seeing lately. Most, if not all, are tagged or logged as far as I know. Last week, surfers got out of the water at Broad Beach because a shark went under their board. And last month, fishermen sent me photos of a white shark cruising under the Malibu Pier.”
Since first opening to the public in 1938, the Malibu Pier has drawn fishermen to enjoy the bounty of the ocean. “A fantastic fishing experience can be had right from the deck of the pier,” The pier’s website (malibupier.com) states. “In summer, the season peaks with halibut, thresher shark, and bat rays while corbina and mackerel are year-round catches.”
The Cal State University Long Beach Shark Lab, founded in 1969, is dedicated to the study of physiological and behavioral ecology of sharks, rays, and other economically important gamefish in Southern California. Its mission is to improve conservation of sharks, according to its website. The lab monitors shark activity with listening stations near Malibu, trying to spot the sharks using acoustic tags and spot tags.
Scientists at the lab note it is wise to be aware of the possibility of seeing or encountering a shark when in the ocean. What a viewer should do includes assessing what the shark is doing, keep your eyes on it and slowly move away. Then, tell lifeguards. If you drop in on a shark, try to avoid direct contact, stay on the board and keep moving. If a shark approaches you, stay calm and keep your eyes on it and slowly move towards the beach. What a viewer should not do includes not chasing a shark and not attempting to rescue a stranded shark.
The most common sharks are juvenile white sharks, like the one spotted at the Malibu Pier last week. Drone studies by Gauna, an advocate of ongoing studies of what is going on with our Southern California white shark population, and others document that it is evident through aerial observations that humans cannot see sharks at water level in most cases.
“It may likely be that the only thing that has changed through the years is our ability to see them from the air and more effective tagging/tracking methods by scientists — sharks can be scary, but nothing is scarier than an ocean devoid of sharks!” Gauna recently told Surfer.com. “If there are no sharks in the ocean, it’s very likely humans aren’t going to be around either.”
If the fisherman on the pier who had the close encounter with a shark last year is any indication, perhaps one would have more luck taking a photo of a shark, as opposed to trying to snag it on a line.
Otherwise, he might be relegated to having to tell people about “the one that got away!”