An “aggressive” great white shark was spotted in the waters off Huntington Beach on Tuesday, prompting the closure of a popular surfing spot.
The Huntington Beach Fire Department said in statement Tuesday afternoon that a roughly 10- to 12-foot great white shark exhibiting “aggressive behavior” was seen near Lifeguard Tower 16.
Derek Peters, marine safety battalion chief with the department, told The Times the beach was closed after a report around 3 p.m. from a foilboard surfer of a shark circling about 300 feet offshore.
Chris Lowe, director of the Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab, posited to The Times on Tuesday night that the great white was an adult that might have been hunting for elephant seals. As swimmers are warned away, Lowe said his researchers will head to the area on Wednesday with drones and other tracking methods to try to confirm the sighting.
The surfer who made the report was not bumped, bitten or otherwise hurt by the shark, Peters said.
Even though the department was not able to independently verify the sighting — they searched by drone, jet ski and rescue boat, in addition to conducting beach patrols — they deemed the surfer to be a “credible source.”
The waters off Huntington Beach from Seapoint Street to the Huntington Beach Pier are closed, according to the statement.
The closure of the roughly two-mile stretch is expected to last through 3 p.m. Wednesday, though additional patrols will take place before it reopens, Peters said. People can remain on the sand but are advised to stay out of the water.
Peters said the Huntington Beach area tends to see more sharks in the fall and spring due to migratory patterns. The closure was Huntington Beach’s second shark-related water closure of the year; in the spring, a shark was spotted near the pier, resulting in a 24-hour water closure, he said.
Shark sightings at Southern California beaches have surged this year. Experts have attributed the uptick to El Niño, a climate pattern characterized by warmer ocean waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific.
Lowe noted that the waters near Southern California had recently been seeing many juvenile white sharks in the 5- to 10-foot range due to the ocean temperatures in the region being “just right.”
Juvenile white sharks like to spend time in places with ocean temperatures between 67 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. At this time of the year, they would typically congregate near Baja, Mexico. But ocean temperatures there have gotten too warm, so they are heading north, he said.
Many sharks don’t draw the notice of beachgoers, but “sharks are around people all the time” in the ocean, Lowe said.
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