Diane Bell of Sign On San Diego reported that there is another great area near the California coast where Great White Sharks congregate – the famous Malibu Beach where surfers and swimmers have ventured in off-shore waters for decades.
Shark wrangler helps unlock mystery of great whites
Poway man and his crew trap, tag and track the giant sharks off California coast
By Diane Bell
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 9:30 p.m.
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Three years ago this month, triathlete David Martin, 66, was killed by a great white shark while swimming with his friends just 150 yards off Solana Beach.
Great white sightings are rare here, but there no doubt will be interest in the National Geographic Channel’s second season two-hour premiere of “Shark Men” at 9 p.m. Sunday.
The Chris Fischer-led expedition (yes, his real name) focuses on Capt. Brett McBride, a “shark wrangler” from Poway, and his crew as they capture and tag great white sharks off the coast of San Francisco and Malibu. Their mission is to track the elusive creatures, to discover more about their habits and where they give birth to help protect the species’ dwindling population. They found juvenile great whites thriving in Malibu waters and concluded it was a nursery of sorts, just 300 meters from unaware surfers and swimmers.
McBride recalls some anxious moments, especially when he stuck his hand through the gills of a 14-foot great white to remove a hook that had embedded, not in its lip, but far back in its mouth. The hook wasn’t fully removed when scientists severed the line and released the shark, but subsequent monitoring verified that it survived and has since traveled thousands of miles.
Despite having grown up diving and fishing in the kelp beds off San Diego’s coast, McBride says he never encountered a great white here but once met a huge seven-gill shark that “made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.”
McBride attributes increasing shark sightings here to the popularity of paddle boarding. Because people stand on boards looking into the water, they’re seeing what has always been there but went unnoticed.
He says sightings of four- to five-foot baby whites off San Onofre, Torrey Pines State Beach and La Jolla add to speculation that pregnant females come into these shallower coastal areas to drop their calves because the food supply, such as rays, skates and halibut, is plentiful there.
He explained that most are juveniles not interested in humans or even seals. “I would never be concerned,” said McBride. “Driving to the beach is much more dangerous than swimming at the beach.”
Copyright © 2011 by Open Water Source