SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. (KRON) – The evidence is purely anecdotal at this point, but the shark that bit a swimmer at Gray Whale Cove on the San Mateo County coast over the weekend was probably a young great white shark, perhaps 6-8 feet long.
KRON4 caught up with the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation’s Sean Van Sommeran today in Moss Landing.
Sommeran says humans are usually not on the sharks menu.
“What’s unusual is that someone got bitten.”
Drone video of what appears to be a young great white shark from June 11th near Gray Whale Cove. Van Sommeran says the great white’s traditional territory may be shifting northward.
“There’s a reciprocal absence down in Baja, as the center of gravity shifts north. It shouldn’t be seen as an increase in white shark population. The center of gravity is shifting north, and that includes these pups.”
In recent years, Van Sommeran and Watsonville’s specialized helicopter have been posting videos of several juvenile great whites swimming close to shore near Seacliff State Beach near Santa Cruz.
They’re relatively small, but still dangerous.
“They don’t have to try to eat you to cause an injury.”
There may be more young, hungry sharks, off our coast, suggesting perhaps that shark attacks, however rare, may be unavoidable.
But as Van Sommeran points out, there are more people in the water too.
“Including formally isolated areas that didn’t include traffic. You have people fishing off the shore, people swimming among the fishing lines. Kids go out in innertubes to go look at the sharks. What could go wrong?”
Van Sommeran cautions people who go out into the water in those areas that if there are young juvenile sharks in the area, it’s likely that larger sharks are nearby.