Herd of juvenile Great Whites sets up home in Monterey Bay, northern California. Local beachgoers enthralled, says newspaper.
The recent arrival of a herd of juvenile Great White sharks in northern California’s Monterey Bay has been “enthralling beachgoers, residents, local media outlets and scientists,” reports The Guardian.
In the story, Shark park: group of great whites find unexpected home off California coast, we learn that scientists suspect warming ocean temperatures have driven the Whites north from their usual home on the US-Mex border and that now they’re enjoying “a pocket of warmth near the famed surfing beaches of Santa Cruz, California.”
Do you suck and nibble waves in this region?
Should you be worried?
Megan Petersen, a naturalist who works on a whale watching charter boat in Santa Cruz, told The Guardian that because juveniles are half the size of an adult Great White and they feed exclusively on small fish and squid they are “generally not a threat to humans, and they’re pretty docile.”
A marine biologist at Stanford University, Taylor Chapple, described Great Whites as “sort of like those giant dog breeds – like Great Danes or something – they just saunter around the ocean.”
Do you remember when the writer Lewis Samuels, who lives in San Francisco, seventy or so miles away from Monterey Bay, described watching his pal Royce Fraley explode out of the water in the mouth of a Great White?
“I saw the shark breeching out of the water with him in its mouth. Then they fell down in an explosion of whitewater, like when a whale breaches. Fifteen feet is as big as a car and they’re a lot fatter in person than you’d think they would be. And he was in the fish’s mouth and there was this fucking impact in the water and then there was nothing there, gone, like a fucking whirlpool of displaced whitewater where he’d been.”
Or Fraley’s riposte that Lewis left him to die?
Rogue Whites, perhaps.
I just got back from camping at New Brighton State Beach and saw at least two on the first day and another the next day. Basically no waves breaking and they came in super close, within 20′ of dry sand. Pretty small, just cruising up and down the beach and, I must admit, seemingly docile.
I agree. That is the sharks environment. However I will admire them from the shore. I am the mother of a colossal great Dane, and they are giant Angel’s. But I dont think I’ll sleep with a juvenile great white anytime soon. I’ll stick with my great dane!
People are always complaining about the sharks in the ocean . What gives them the right to feel it’s the sharks who are the bad guys when in fact the ocean is their home , not ours ! Sharks do what sharks do and when people get into the ocean they are then in the sharks home. So we all know that , and when we do we are taking a chance on having an encounter with a shark. The ocean belongs to them , not us ! Keep that in mind every time you get into it.
Look at it this way, if an intruder were to just walk into your home uninvited , how would you react ?
Wonderful… do they obey the ‘heel’ command and swim docilely beside one on the left hand side?
Did you complain about blue sharks or hammerheads? Are those races too? What about chocolate or yellow labs while you’re at it?
OMFG. Are you serious? Notice retard the name is due to the fact that more than half of the body is white .a distinctive marking pattern, hence the name, Great White Shark.
Y’all need to take that chump out on a boat ride and let him swim home in a chum slick
Fuckin hell, the only rogue whites I’m worried about these days are the ones on land with heavy weaponry.
They’ve got until April when the orca pod usually shows up
Hyperbole aside, If BG got Lewis Samuels on board, we’re talking Olympics!
Absolute tragedy the comments were all deleted in the server upgrade on that linked article. Was some internet gold in there…
That’s two “suck and nibble’s” in one morning.
Yellow card.
Juveniles? Not TOO much to worry about. A maturing juvenile? BIG PROBLEM.
Most GW attacks are attributed to sharks in the 10-12ft range, which is around when they start to eat bigger prey, but they do not yet know what is and is not food.
Much like a teething toddler, they’ll go around chomping on everything in sight trying to figure out what it is and whether they can eat it. Propellers, bouys, crab pots, and occasionally people are all found with bite marks consistent with this behaviour. It is also why the majority of GW attacks are of the “bump and bite” variety. The shark will come in, maybe have a nudge with their nose and a nibble on limb before deciding neoprene and fibreglass are not very tasty, and spitting out the poor victim.
If adolescent GWs behave anything like my early-developing 12 year old son we’re all fucked
Monterey Bay? – Big little lies!
Is Big Little Lies worth my investment of time and concentration?
I started off liking but it got rather tiresome – a very up-market Summer Bay!
Did someone say Home and Away , launched under the evil empire of Skase , before he found his own summer bay sanctuary in the Med . I was working there at 7 when the shit hit the fan , came back from 2 weeks on the Gold Coast and The Evil Empire had Fallen but no happy ending ……except for Homo and Gay ( as the crew called it ) who became the never ending story .
me too. about 20 minutes in
Only if to please a (fem) lover. Otherwise, no.
Fuuuuuuuuck no
This has been the case for the past several summers. No one’s died yet…
You’d have to think it might help with the crowds.
When you get a UCSC hippy transplant and mix in VAL tendencies, not sure even a few great whites can scare off that sense of entitlement
Seriously. There were two that washed up on the beach within a month of each other about three years ago and it didn’t even phase the crowd. Sad times, indeed.
There are multiple photos on the internet of Lewis Samuel with facial injuries and it makes me incredibly jealous of the perpetrator. It’s a sad reality that I cannot reach through a computer and punch a cunt in the face. Such is life I guess.
The loveliest man, in real life, full of adventurous stories etc.
Yeah what’s with the Samuels hate? Dude is a Lord. Unless Wiggs is actually Drew Courtney…
Also, herd as the collective noun don’t sound right. But given they’re a solitary fish maybe there’s nothing better yet.
What about a ‘panic’ of whites
This should definitely be the correct nomenclature. And the things are being seen here almost daily. I may need a wetsuit with a trapdoor if this the new normal.
Haha na mate I just hate everyone equally. It’s not based on merit. I am a troll.
A “fleet” of whites, perhaps?
A little nod to the colonial days where “whites” just cruised the oceans fucking everyone up. Plus the bastards grow as big as ship anyway.
“Australian Surf” of whites?
Please be Benjamin Button.
The second reference to that man Button in one day .
Monterey ? I reckon it might be Mack and the Boys , reincarnated as Sharks , trying to find Doc’s Old Lab on Cannery Row , and throw him a party ? I might head over myself to Lee Chong’s for a Quart …….
You would prob say the same about Chas, Matt Warshaw and Nick Carroll though mate 🙂