Lots of sharks being spotted in the Monterey Bay

The number of great whites have been increasing along the Monterey Bay.

While the average beach goer rarely sees the sharks, sometimes you just need a different perspective. “Lots of great white sharks! More than I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been saying that again and again… I keep saying we are seeing more and more shark,” says Chris Gularte with Specialized Helicopters.

Gularte says he has been flying his chopper over the bay for years, but he says he’s never seen what he saw Sunday near Monterey. He says he saw, “30 from the small section of coastline that I was specifically talking about. And then later that evening same 30. And then another 20 or 30 on the
backside towards Santa Cruz.”

Over at Moss Landing Marine Labs, Shark expert Dave Ebert says it’s unusual just how many great whites are out there. He says we typically see a lot of adults, but more juveniles are showing up. “Which is really incredible because they are like one of the top predators out there, except for maybe
the orcas. And so there needs to be a lot of good food below them if they are here in that kind of numbers,” says Ebert.

With the recent shark attack in southern California, the chance of getting attacked is still very small. Ebert says, “The figure I like to throw out is since 1950 til now, there’s been on average 3 or 4 shark attacks a year. Where California has gone from 15 million to almost 40 million… the chance of actually getting attacked has actually gone down.”

Ebert says we are pretty much at the peak of our shark season. Those numbers should die down after November. Until then, Ebert says don’t fear the ocean… just respect it.