Chris Lowe said El Niño California shark activity is likely to intensify off the California coast this summer as warmer waters draw more white sharks north. The professor of marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at Long Beach State University said fishermen, surfers and others may need to change how they behave in the water.
He described the change in one line: “We get this whole different ocean.”
Douglas McCauley on warm water
Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said warmer water can bring “all kinds of weird tropical things” to California. He said, “We’re already seeing Mahi mahi,” and added, “You’ll see more bluefin tuna, and you see weird stuff, like we’ll see more sea turtles and sea snakes.”
The yellow-bellied sea snake turns up only during unusually warm periods and should not be handled. McCauley said juvenile sharks and other aquatic visitors are appearing early this summer because an intense marine heat wave is already in place before El Niño fully arrives.
Shark Lab and previous El Niño
Scientists and the Shark Lab are working to help prepare fishermen, surfers and others for summer and fall conditions with animals they are not used to sharing the ocean with. White sharks arriving off California are mostly large numbers of juvenile sharks that follow warmer water temperatures within a very narrow comfort zone.
Previous El Niño events have also brought tiger sharks and bull sharks off California, and hammerhead sharks have arrived after mahi mahi. During the 2015-2016 El Niño, two hammerhead shark bites were reported offshore.
El Niño Southern Oscillation
El Niño brings warmer-than-normal water to the eastern Pacific and can suppress upwelling in the California current, cutting off the supply of zooplankton, small fish and other prey. The stronger pattern can alter entire marine ecosystems, shifting both animals and the food they need to survive.
That leaves the practical question for beachgoers and water users this summer: how many white sharks or other unusual marine animals will actually reach California? Lowe and McCauley are pointing to warmer water and early arrivals, but the scale of the change still depends on how the season unfolds.
