How often are there sharks near you?
This of course depends on many factors, but for some spots in San Diego County, a recent study reveals that juvenile white sharks are present about 97% of the time.
Patrick T. Rex (yes, that's his real name) and colleagues at California State University, Long Beach's Shark Lab used drones to observe shark and human behavior along the California coast. In one of the rare instances where drones above the lineup serve a noble purpose, their cameras captured detailed interactions between sharks and various ocean users from San Diego to Santa Barbara County.
In areas of shark aggregation such as Del Mar and Carpinteria, they found that humans and sharks were within 100 meters of each other 97% of the time.
Figure 4 of the paper contains a wealth of information, and a subset of the panels is shown below. These panels show how frequently sharks, surfers, waders, and others were observed during different months of the year. The shark observations show the most variability, with numerous peaks. Swimmers proved the pickiest, really only liking the summer months. Surfers show more flexibility, all dolled-up in their neoprene onesies.
(Another set of these figures has wave size on the bottom axis. It shows that sharks generally avoid bigger waves. The surfers peaked at just under 1 meter surf, that classic 2-3ft we see in SoCal. Bodyboarders, true to form, buck the trend – their numbers actually double with wave height, showing a clear preference for bigger conditions. Send it spongers.)
This next figure zooms in on Del Mar, our white shark central in San Diego. The little red dots on the map mark all locations where sharks were spotted from above. The colored portion indicates where surfers and sharks are most likely to overlap. The second panel shows the total of each type of creature observed during the four seasons, revealing that sharks are most commonly sighted during Fall and Spring.
The bottom panel offers a cool depiction of how close to the break zone everyone sits on average. It confirms something we already know and hate: paddleboarders love to sit just a little outside of the lineup, and tourists have no idea that they are right in your way. It also shows that sharks generally remain further out to sea than surfers, though they definitely overlap.
We can look at all this in a couple of ways. On one hand, that's a lot of sharks, they're really close, and you might consider taking up a different sport. On the other hand, attacks here are so ridiculously infrequent despite how often we interact with these animals that getting bitten isn't the first thing you should be worried about out there.
To our friends with fins, the men in the grey suits - truce? Thanks for letting us play at your house.
Further Reading: