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Growing up in an area scientists have labeled the "red triangle" due to a dense great White Shark population, I've always been fascinated with the thought of sharing the surf with one of the biggest, most efficient predators on earth.
Though after 27 years of surfing the "triangle", I'm still not sure if I've even seen one. Once, I observed what I thought was a White thrashing the water off of Ano Nuevo and, another time, I windsurfed through an apparent blood slick off of Davenport. I'm sure there have been days when I was the one being observed. But after spending such an enormous time in the ocean and with only these few encounters to speak of, it's incredible how elusive a creature the Great White can be.
The Pelagic Shark Research Foundation (PSRF), located in Santa Cruz, was formed as a nonprofit research and education group in 1990 to help increase our knowledge and, hopefully, public awareness about sharks.
I recently had a discussion with Sean Van Sommeran, the Operations Director of the Foundation. My goal was to shed some light on my brief shark encounters in an effort to better understand and co-exist with sharks.
So, Sean, I hear you're tagging Great Whites off of Ano Nuevo. What kind of results are you getting?
Since mid-October, we've managed to tag 12 and identify 14.
What are some of your goals with this program?
Well, with this project in particular, we started out with the question: can White Sharks be studied at Ano as they are off of the Farallons? So, since '92 we've been on boats just seeing if we could observe any evidence of shark activity. There were certainly reports but they were very sporadic.
After confirming activity, we then moved to Ano Island and observed and photographed events through '94. In '95, we entered the interactive, tagging phase. We're trying to make this behavioral study as least invasive as possible. We don't want to encroach on what the sharks are doing naturally. We'll wait for a feeding event and then drive over in our boat and hook the [dead] seal which is then used basically as a bait station, so the observations are from a natural event which is taking place. As the shark comes up to feed, we put a Fish and Game tag onto the shark's back.
Will these tags stay on indefinitely?
Yeah, on the East Coast, they've found that the tags will stay on for at least 25 years on other species of sharks. So, with this project, we wanted to establish whether we could do the research out there [Ano]. Now that we have tagged a dozen animals and started an I.D. catalogue, we want to take it to the next phase by tracking [them]. in co-operation with U.C. Davis and UCSC. We'll start using sub-sonic tags which are now being used by researchers off the Farallons. These tags have their own signature beacon; which have also been cross-developed and utilized by the marine mammal researchers on elephant seals. They've actually been tracking the elephant seals' migration which goes way out to the middle of the ocean. We'd like to get these tags on the sharks as well, so we'll know when, where and who is going within that certain grid area we'll have patterned out of Ano. [Sometime in '96], we hope to have at least a half-dozen sharks tagged that we can literally follow around.
How often do you see sharks when you're researching?
When we were observing on the Island, we'd go weeks without seeing a thing. In the boat and using decoys, we've seen sharks almost every time we go out. I'd say, since mid-October, we've been out 2 dozen times and 3 or 4 of these times we didn't get any results. Some days we'd see one shark and other days we'd see several.
Tell me about the decoys used to attract sharks?
The decoy is actually a plywood cut-out where the silhouette looks like an elephant seal. We've also got one named Raisin that's actually a good mock-up of an elephant seal.
Do [the sharks] just come up and nail these things, or what?
No, only a few times they've smashed the target up. Usually, when the shark comes up to check out an object, they come up closely; and I think that's what happens when a human is attacked. A lot of times, we'll throw out seat cushions and other objects out in the proximity of a feeding event. The object will always eventually be checked out. The sharks will swim up slowly, rest [their] head on it, put it in [their] mouth and, basically, check it out; and that's what usually happens to a surfer. You're paddling along and the shark kind of cruised up and grabs you with his mouth and, from there, it's basically seeing what you're doing. Usually, once it establishes that it's just a primate on a floating piece of something, then it just goes away. Meanwhile, the surfer screams, "oh my God", paddles in all #$@%*! up, goes to the hospital, gets stitched up, and rarely dies. If it really was a serious attack, and sometimes that does happen, for example, Lou Boren off of Asilomar a few years back. The shark swims up at 30 mph and blows your doors off and you never knew what hit you. I've seen attacks on 1000 pound seals where they're absolutely destroyed on the first bite! I would say that happens [in] 1 in 20 investigations. Most of the time the shark will swim under the object without even touching it. Maybe a big boil would come up and, if that were a surfer, he'd be freaked, but unscathed. That's usually what happens with the objects we put out. But then I'm sure 90% of the time the shark swims by 20' under the surface and goes, "okay, that's a piece of plywood" and keeps going.
Yeah, I've often wondered how many times I've been checked out.
It's like how many times have you walked by a dog and have it bite you. Surely, once in a while, one may jump out and bite you, but the majority are going to hold out for a scoobie-snack.
With this [area] being dubbed the "Red Triangle", you would think there would be a lot more attacks.
Sharks have been studied over the years in a baited context. Humans would go to an area, pour blood in the water, and the sharks would come up all agitated and hungry and that would be the public's perception of them. Pictures and videos [have been] taken. For instance, "Blue Water White Death", which was kind of a hallmark movie representing a very artificial and narrow window of what the White shark is all about. Actually, there are a lot more dangerous sharks [than the White]. The Bull and Tiger sharks bite a lot more people than Great Whites, and they appear to be a lot more indiscriminate in feeding and devouring. Great Whites seem to be very selective. They'll bite a lot of different things but won't consume them. Mechanically, [the Great White is] certainly the most imposing. It is big and it's the world's largest predatory fish. It's certainly capable of doing all the things that they are depicted of doing in the movies but, statistically speaking, it's really not the most dangerous shark. In our studies, we've found that it seems they often go for weeks without eating.
Why would they not eat for that long, would it possibly be lack of opportunity?
We don't understand that. Because they linger in the area, we'll see them day after day and not witness any feeding events. The weakness in that observation is [that] they may be feeding at night or we may just be missing it. We've observed one specific White this year feeding 3 separate times but with a long interim in-between, [even though it was] present in the area the whole time.
What keeps it in the area when it's not hungry? What keeps it from wandering elsewhere and then coming back to the kitchen when it's hungry? It seems to kind of just hand around in-between feedings.
There's probably some other social interaction going on. Perhaps they're paring up or mating, which is an ambitious assumption. But there's something other than feeding going on. There's something other than feeding going on, but we're not sure what it is.
It sure seems there are a lot of unanswered questions with Great Whites...
For generations, marine mammals have been the obvious first choice to study for biologists. They're big, dynamic, attractive, easy to acquire funding for, and they have to breathe at the surface; which makes them relatively easy to study. Whereas, sharks are more elusive and perceived to be more dangerous to work with.
Have you observed Great Whites just cruising on the surface or are they mostly underneath?
Yeah, they're mostly underneath, and even when they are feeding near the surface they tend to stay just out of sight, a few millimeters under.
So you barely even just see a dorsal cruising like a lot of sharks do.
Yeah, like Blue Sharks cruise the surface looking for vibrations, signaling prey similar to a spider web. Whereas White Sharks seem to be a lot more visual in their tracking. Their prey items are very alert and vigorous, so they have to remain quite a bit more stealthy and cryptic. For that reason, I believe they're a lot more secretive and not prone to being obvious on the surface, unless they have a mouthful of something and then it doesn't matter. They will usually just cruise under the surface. When it's glassy conditions, they're a lot easier to spot because of the boils in the water. Even so, it's interesting how camouflaged they are.
I've heard that Great Whites are more abundant on this coast in the summer and fall.
Actually, we've observed them only in the fall and winter with any regularity.
So this is a myth?
The reason for increased attacks during summer is there's simply more humans in the water, so people assume they're more abundant then. Over the past decade, people have perceived a slight increase in White Shark and human encounters.
It makes sense because the marine mammal population has expanded and naturally so have the Great Whites. But what most researchers are ignoring is the fact that there are simply more and more people going into the water: jet skis, bathers, surfers, divers, sailboarders; and since there are more people out there, there's more chance for a shark to run into a human.
Statistics have also shown an increase in boat crashes, people falling off cliffs, muggings up the coast, and car burglaries--just because there's more people around.
The sharks are more or less constant. We may see some areas where sharks may significantly increase, but it's really theoretical.
I know you fish in-between observations. Do the hooked fish ever attract a White?
It's never happened to me, but I've talked to several fisherman that have observed Whites making a pass at their hooked fish and, sometimes, actually gulping it down.
When Whites are younger, they eat a high abundance of fish, Rock Cod and Ling Cod, and then, when they get larger, they become more ambitious and start going after mammals.
Will they tangle with a full grown Elephant Seal?
Sure. Generally, the shark is always going to be bigger than the prey item, if not by much
Can you kind of sense when a shark is in the area before you see it? Do mammals start scattering, or what?
Not really that I've noticed. A lot of times, there will be no animals around at all which kind of makes sense. Other times we'll see 3 or 4 Sea Lions cruise right though the course line and the shark will pretty much ignore them. I think part of the shark's game plan is that they are habituating themselves to the scene, so the seals get used to them, and then, suddenly, BAM! That's when they take advantage.
Do you have any advice to surfers trying not to become lunch?
Surf with a buddy. It's like bears and people are in parks together all the time, and every once in a while a bear is gonna do something, and every once in a while a poacher is gonna shoot one of them. It's the law of the land...
Thanks for the inverview, Sean.
More Shark Advice.
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