Sharks Swim Near People More Often Than Previously Thought, Study Says

Since the release of the 1975 blockbuster movie “Jaws,” sharks transformed into one of the planet’s most feared creatures.

Perhaps a new study can quell a bit of those fears. 

Researchers at Cal State Long Beach discovered that juvenile white sharks are actually oftentimes swimming near humans, yet shark bites continue to be rare, the Los Angeles Times reports. 

“It’s not just about sharks, it’s about people,” Christopher Lowe, professor of marine biology at Cal State Long Beach and director of the school’s Shark Lab, told the LA Times in a statement. 

“This study may change people’s perception of the risk sharks pose to people that share the ocean with them.”

Using drones, researchers scanned beaches along the California coast for over two years. 

They discovered that sharks and humans were swimming together 97 percent of the time in two areas where juvenile white sharks gathered in Santa Barbara County and San Diego County, the LA Times reports.

“The juvenile white sharks were often observed within 50 yards of where the waves break, putting surfers and stand-up paddle boarders in the closest proximity to sharks at the aggregation sites,” Patrick Rex, a lab technician at the Shark Lab, told the Los Angeles Times in a statement. 

“Most of the time water users didn’t even know the sharks were there,” he told the newspaper,  “but we could easily see them from the air.”

Rex told the LA Times in an interview he was surprised by their findings. 

“People think, ‘If I see a shark in the lineup (the area where waves begin breaking), I’m going to get bitten or I’m in danger.’” Rex told the outlet. “And what we’ve seen is that that’s not necessarily the case.”

The sharks, he told The LA Times, “tend to mind their own business.”

“And they come up within like 10 feet of people, and that’s happening daily,” he told the outlet. 

“What we found,” he told the newspaper, “is that they’re spending the majority of their time within 100 yards of where the waves are breaking.”

“It was assumed that sharks are miles out but you could be wading and then have a shark swim right next to you.”

During the two years of research, not one shark bite was reported on any of the beaches studied, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Some 209 shark incidents have occurred from 1950 to November 2022, according to The Times, citing figures from the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The researchers don’t know why sharks are not that interested in eating people, and that while hunting, the creatures ignore activity at the water’s surface, the newspaper reports. And, Rex told the LA Times,  they also don’t know “why sharks bite people.”