Great White Dive

[PhotoTJ]

That's why I saw him, I wasn't camera protected! When I get my 5050 down there, he will be eating sealions in the Sea of Cortez!

 

[alaity47]

There haven't actually been any GW sightings at Catalina, have there?

Sorry to hear the vis is still crap at the UW park... we're heading out there in a couple of weeks. Will keep my fingers crossed!

 

[drbill]

alaity47- of course there have been reported great white sightings out here, they just don't make the news. The ones I've heard about were around the East End ("Seal" Rocks) and at Hen Rock (small 10' juvenile).

Great whites have been seen off Catalina ever since I moved here in the late 60's (don't mean to infer I am responsible for that, there were sightings before I arrived of course). However there are no substantiated attacks on divers or swimmers and I've never seen one underwater in all those years.

Those I know who have seen them underwater say they are shy and retreat too quickly to get video footage, or that they are curious, or that they just swim by without stopping.

In short, I wouldn't worry about them here.

Dr. Bill

 

[Frank O]

There was a well-publicized story (it appeared in the L.A. Times, anyway) in the summer of 2002 about a spearfisher (I believe a freediver) who was at the Catalina backside lining up a shot on a group of fish when they suddenly parted and he saw the mouth of a GWS coming at him. If memory is correct, he released a shot at the shark and hightailed out of the water, the shark never making contact with him.

I also have several freediver friends who talk about a GWS that's been seen over several years at the Rock Quarry on the Catalina frontside. I freedived a few months ago there with a fellow who had seen it personally.

And then just this year a couple of freedivers said they got back into their boat anchored at Farnsworth Bank (offshore reef off Catalina backside) when a GWS spectacularly breached with a sea lion in its mouth.

As Bill notes, however, there have never been any cases of a white shark actually making contact with a human at Catalina.

 

[JustAddWater]

I thought I read an article in California Dive News a year or two ago, about a spearfisherman who was either descending or on the anchor line and saw something large come out of the murk. As it came upon him, he realized it was an opening mouth of a great white. If memory serves, he shot the fish, abandoned the gun, hauled butt out of the water. It ended with something like' be on the lookout for a shark with a spear shaft in its nose.

 

[drbill]

FrankO and JustAddWater- You're right that there were reports by a spearfisherman of an encounter on the backside of Catalina. However, from what I've heard that report was not taken seriously. If I remember correctly, it was the second such report by the same individual, neither of which were considered credible. This is all second hand.

Yes, there does appear to be a "resident" GWS at the rock quarry near Empire Landing. That is where two of my friends have seen one... twice. We also have had reports of GWS seen eviscerating sea lions near the East End, one by two friends of mine. Sightings of HWS at the surface have been made between the ast End and Pebbly Beach. Divers reported one from Eagle Reef off the West End.

Dr. Bill

 

[Frank O]

drbill bubbled...
Yes, there does appear to be a "resident" GWS at the rock quarry near Empire Landing. That is where two of my friends have seen one... twice. We also have had reports of GWS seen eviscerating sea lions near the East End, one by two friends of mine. Sightings of HWS at the surface have been made between the ast End and Pebbly Beach. Divers reported one from Eagle Reef off the West End.

Anecdotes like these lead a number of my friends to conclude that white sharks are perhaps more astute than they're given credit for. We freedivers can resemble pokey pinnipeds as we make slow (by the standards of marine creatures) dives and meander around on the surface. Yet with all the divers out there at Catalina on any weekend, there's been no record of a GWS attack on a human at the island ever. Perhaps the sharks are better at distinguishing spearfishers (or freediving photographers) from sea lions than we might give them credit for?

Another fascinating question here is what is the normal range of a typical GWS of a size large enough (10 ft+) to develop a taste for pinnipeds. For example, take the 'resident' shark at the Quarry -- surely it doesn't swim back and forth at this single cove, waiting for dinner? How far up or down the island (or out to sea) does it venture? Does it head up to the Farallon Islands near San Francisco for the renowned annual GWS mating get-together there? If there is any tracking info out there, it would make for interesting reading.

 

[ChrisM]

There was a show recently (Shark Week) about the seasonal GWS party at Ano Nuevo, an elephant seal rookery. They tagged a number of sharks. One went to Hawaii (the smart one)

Others traveled down the Cal. coast, some all the way down to Guadalupe

So, at least for these GWS, doubt they're "resident" anywhere

In fact, here's a link to a Stanford article re: this study
Shark migration

 

[Frank O]

Actually, after posing my rhetorical question, I do recall reading some articles in the past few months about shark migration on the U.S. west coast. As I recall, they mate in the so-called "red triangle" near San Francisco, then the males typically head out to sea (Hawaii and perhaps beyond). The females supposedly come down the coast to Southern Calif. So all those big GWS's that are seen from time to time are probably moms. The little ones, like the ones down by Camp Pendleton in the past few weeks, are just kids or teens (without yet a taste for marine mammals).

Still, it would be interesting to know just how big a daily range one of these animals that's seen, say, at Catalina has.

 

[drbill]

PhotoTJ- you were harvesting scallops after a red tide? I guess that didn't register with me initially. Weren't you at greater risk eating a filterer following a red tide than you were with an eency weency (sp?) fish eating GWS?

I won't touch mussels under such conditions and although I think I remember there being differences in the way scallops concentrate the dinoflagellate toxins, I'm not sure I'd risk eating them either!

Dr. Bill