Look: Great White Shark Swimming Extremely Close to Shore in Santa Cruz

Dashel Pierson
·2 min read
6

In California, it’s “sharktober.”

That’s when shark activity, and attacks, are historically higher than other months throughout the year. And in Santa Cruz, a drone operator captured just that…

A large great white swimming extremely close to shore.

“It’s sharktober,” drone videographer Eric Mailander told ABC7.

“That’s what they call it. October, sharktober. This is when the big ones start showing up.

“I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘how close od sharks come to shore?’ That video kinda speaks for itself. It does speak volumes.”

It turns out, there was a decomposing dead whale onshore, which perhaps was attracting the shark in the first place to come so close to the beach.

“You have to realize that whale is decomposing,” Mailander continued. “It’s sending a lot of scents in the water, a lot of oils.”

According to the Shark Research Committee, as fall comes around in the Golden State, shark incidents go up; they write:

“Along the Pacific Coast of North America, shark attacks on humans occurred in every month of the year, with a dramatic peak during August, September and October. The fewest attacks reported for a month were three each for March and June.”

And Dr. Chris Lowe, of CSULB’s Shark Lab, which recently published a study showing sharks were near surfers 97% of the time at certain beaches, echoed that in an interview with Surfline:

“Normally we don’t have adult white sharks off our beaches,” Dr. Lowe said, “but the fall is when they’re passing through. They usually don’t stay; they’re usually just on their way to one of those major rookeries. The chances of encountering an adult are usually very low off the coast, but offshore islands are different. Once you get out to, say, the outer Channels Islands, I would expect there to be a lot of adult white shark activity through probably November.”

Spooky season.

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