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That was Huntington Beach Marine Safety Lt. Claude Panis’ first thought when he got a report about a shark sighting in 2014. It was the first in his decades-long career guarding the coast.
“I looked at it and thought, ‘Nah, I’m not buying it,’” he recalled.
Much has changed in the past five years.
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Panis was one of more than 50 lifeguards from Ventura to San Diego who joined the first-ever Southern California Shark Workshop recently at CSU Long Beach, a gathering aimed at combining science with public safety as shark populations grow off the coast.
The workshop, hosted by the school’s Shark Lab and held in the Barrett Athletic Administration Center, was a glimpse at how $3.75 million in state funds will be used to improve beach safety and research, part of a bill co-authored by Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, that passed last year.
“These workshops are bringing everyone together, it puts us together as a team,” Panis said. “We’re all developing the systems and safeguards together.”
When you consider how many people are in the water every day in Southern California — and how rare it is to have an interaction with a shark — people shouldn’t worry, Shark Lab Director Chris Lowe told the crowd during the workshop.
“After a rainstorm, the bacteria in the water — that’s something people need to worry about,” he said.
Still, the public needs to be educated as shark populations increase, and lifesavers need to be prepared in knowing how to respond if a shark encounter, or attack, does occur.
And those attacks in recent years are becoming more frequent.
Swimmer Steven Robles was bitten off Manhattan Beach in 2014 and another swimmer, Maria Korcsmaros, off Newport Beach in Corona del Mar two years later.
Leeanne Ericson, of San Diego, was attacked while swimming off of San Onofre State Beach in 2017, and a teenage lobster diver, Keane Webre-Hayes, was attacked off of Encinitas last October.
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During a session closed to the public and media because of medical privacy laws, San Diego lifeguards spoke about how they responded to the attack on Webre-Hayes, who was able to swim to a nearby kayak to safety.
A study released by the Shark Research Committee showed there were five authenticated attacks, all believed to be great white sharks, along the Pacific West Coast last year, all from California.
Three of the attacks, including Webre-Hayes, happened off the coast of Southern California, while two were north of San Luis Obispo County.
There have been 216 authenticated unprovoked shark attacks reported from the Pacific Coast of North America from 1900 through 2018, the report reads. The 13 fatal attacks from that period represent six percent of the 216 total cases.
The spike in shark numbers is due to protections put in place decades ago that make it illegal to catch great whites, and restrict gill nets near shore that would frequently ensnare sharks as by-catch.
The expanded protections for seals and sea lions — sharks’ food source — might also be a reason their numbers are flourishing, experts believe.
Those increases have been apparent along the Southern California coastline.
CSU Long Beach graduate students gave a first look at a presentation they’ll show lifeguard agencies in upcoming months on how to differentiate various shark species and how to read behavior to tell if sharks are just curious, in feeding mode or exhibiting aggressive behavior.
Lowe spoke about the use of advanced technology to track sharks, including using acoustic tracking systems that ping receivers offshore, using environmental DNA to test waters for sharks lurking nearby, and using drones and robots beneath the surface to view and record sharks.
Lowe also unveiled a new algorithm with color coding that all the Southern California agencies will adopt to determine whether or not to close beaches. Different factors will be considered, such as if a bite occurred, if the shark is circling or bumping a person, or if the shark is 8 feet or larger, to determine response levels with yellow or red closure signs for given monitoring periods.
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That was welcome news to Panis, who said agencies up until now were often not on the same page.
“Shark Shacks,” tents that will have information about sharks and stingrays, will launch this summer with graduate students giving educational talks to beachgoers, Lowe said. The Shark Lab will also release a children’s beach safety comic book.
One of the goals is to assuage public fear of sharks and explain that a shark sighting doesn’t necessarily mean a shark biting.
“A lot of what we’ll be putting out this summer is really designed to dispel fears and let them know about the sharks that are in the water and why they are important,” Lowe said.
One of the public education programs will be geared toward fishermen, who have a higher chance of interacting with sharks, Lowe said.
He said what they’ve been able to do with the state funding has been “forward thinking,” with inquiries from around the country in coastal areas like Florida and Massachusetts that are dealing with similar shark encounters and concerns.
“Our encounter rates will go up — so what’s the best approach to improve management and education?”
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