Heal the Bay Blog

To present an alternative to the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week (and cult TV movies like Sharknado), Heal the Bay staff write about the marine animals they love so much. The general public has been fed terrifying misconceptions about these creatures, and our mission is to raise awareness about the unique and important role sharks play in our local ocean ecosystem.

Every summer, predictably, images and videos of white sharks gobbling up elephant seals and little sea lions is the topic of conversation on every small screen in the U.S. Between the news media coverage of sharks in the South Bay and week-long cable programming dedicated to sharks I wonder and worry just what people are learning. Are people actually getting “smarter” regarding sharks, or is this coverage promoting fear and misinformation?

I react very differently to the news of shark sightings, as I find the appearance of white sharks in Southern California absolutely thrilling because they are so rare. (Just this week there was a reported sighting of a very large white shark lunching on a sea lion off of the Palos Verdes peninsula.) In fact the population of white sharks is estimated to be in the low hundreds off of the California coast. Although white sharks are currently protected in California waters, decades of over fishing, shark finning and bycatch have depleted white sharks and other shark species in California.

Currently the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is collecting data and assessing whether a threatened or endangered species listing is merited for this species. Collecting the most current scientific data will make it possible to gauge population estimates for white sharks and in turn help establish proper management and regulatory policies.

For Heal the Bay, the conservation of sharks has been a critical part of the work we do through our educational programs, advocacy and policy development. Last year, Heal the Bay helped champion an important law making it illegal to possess or sell shark fins in California. This type of work not only benefits sharks but the entire ecology of the Santa Monica Bay.

So, are people actually getting “smarter” regarding sharks? Well, I have my doubts. I do know that the work we do at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium is educating a new generation of adults and children that will treat sharks with respect and admiration rather than with fear from misconceptions. It will take continued education and activism to save the white shark from extinction. 

Please do your part in helping the Landlord get the respect it deserves.

—  Jose Bacallao
Operations Manager and Aquarist, Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium

To present an alternative to the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week (and cult TV movies like Sharknado), Heal the Bay staff write about the marine animals they love so much. The general public has been fed terrifying misconceptions about these creatures, and our mission is to raise awareness about the unique and important role sharks play in our local ocean ecosystem. 

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”
― H.P. Lovecraft

For most people the world over, the thought of a solitary fin slicing through the waves in the open ocean is absolutely terrifying. The fact is, you’re more likely to get bit by another person than you are to get bit by a shark. 1,587 people were bit by other people in New York City alone in one year. Shark bites that same year in the US? 13.

On average the number of fatalities due to shark bites worldwide ranges between four and six per year. The yearly risk in the U.S. of dying from a shark bite is roughly 1 in 250 million. In contrast, the yearly risk of dying from a vending machine accident is roughly 1 in 112 million. Vending machines are roughly twice as deadly as sharks. How many people do you think would buy tickets to see Attack of the 50 foot Vending Machine?

So why does this fear of sharks pervade our collective nightmares? We irrationally fixate on extremely unlikely threats, like shark attacks or the zombie apocalypse (which I am personally preparing for), while much more likely and high risk threats like heart disease, car accidents, or even the flu don’t occupy our minds and silver screens in quite the same way.  I guess it’s just not as fun to be afraid of the flu as it is to imagine sharks as crazed, bloodthirsty killers lying in wait under the waves, ready to pull you under, or in some cases, dropping down onto your head from the sky as it’s ejected from a tornado in downtown L.A.

The flu just doesn’t make good television. A bloodthirsty shark does. Jaws is the seventh highest grossing movie of all time in North America. Its famous animatronic protagonist has been etched into the minds and nightmares of so many of us, that it’s hard to shake their tarnished image and convince people that sharks are worth protecting. Peter Benchley, author of the book and screenplay for Jaws, said, “Knowing what I know now, I could never write that book today. Sharks don’t target human beings, and they certainly don’t hold grudges.”

We fear sharks because we don’t know them or understand them. We haven’t had positive experiences with sharks and only know the way the media and popular culture has portrayed them – as evil killing machines. This mentality is to blame in part for the ever-increasing slaughter of sharks worldwide, bringing some species to the brink of extinction. 

Your chances of even seeing a shark, much less getting bitten by one, are so slim, that to encounter one in the wild is to be incredibly lucky. During my divemaster training in Utila, Honduras our boat full of fresh-faced dive students had just tied off at a dive spot off the north shore of the island. A few students hopped in the water to relieve themselves, and suddenly one of them yelled “SHARK!” What happened next was comedic. The students who were in the water started swimming frantically back to the boat and clambered aboard as the entire crew of the dive shop jumped overboard like lemmings, falling over each other and practically trampling their students in order to get in the water and catch a glimpse of the shark. I was one of the first in the water and screamed like a schoolgirl into my snorkel at the sight of the beautiful grey shape that gracefully glided out of sight.

Once I learned about sharks and began to understand them I realized there is nothing to fear. I began to see how beautiful they are, how important their existence is to the fragile ocean ecosystem, and how threatened their existence on this planet really is. Their plight is dire; between 20 and 100 million sharks die every year at the hands of humans, and efforts to protect them tend to fall on deaf ears. People are far more likely to want to protect the cute and the fuzzy, and sharks don’t get the kind of conservation attention or empathy enjoyed by pandas or tigers.

You can learn more about these graceful creatures at our Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, and someday maybe, begin to love them and protect them.

—Ana Luisa Ahern, Interactive Campaigns Manager

Annual Risk Of Death During One’s Lifetime

Sources: All accidental death information from National Safety Council. Disease death information from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Shark fatality data provided by the International Shark Attack File.

Lifetime risk is calculated by dividing 2003 population (290,850,005) by the number of deaths, divided by 77.6, the life expectancy of a person born in 2003.

To present an alternative to the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week (and cult TV movies like Sharknado), Heal the Bay staff write about the marine animals they love so much. The general public has been fed terrifying misconceptions about these creatures, and our mission is to raise awareness about the unique and important role sharks play in our local ocean ecosystem. 

Do the recent gloomy summer mornings have you transiting the streets of L.A. in fear that a Sharknado may pop out of the sky? Hopefully not. But, you also probably aren’t considering the ocean action being displayed in the Bay by our local shark ninja, the thresher shark. Threshers just might be deserving of their own action film.

Threshers are best known for their trademark tail fin that has an upper lobe so long that it makes up half of the shark’s length and a third of their body weight. While threshers typically travel alone, it’s not uncommon to find them in the Santa Monica Bay. They are frequently found off the coast of Malibu, and although they prefer offshore waters, last month anglers on the Venice Pier caught a few thresher sharks.

Threshers live in tropical and temperate waters throughout the world. But, the secrets of their ninja-like tail have been difficult to unveil. Scientists have long wondered how they use their strikingly long tail fin. In the past year, this understanding has advanced. Recent findings show that threshers often use their tail to strike and stun fish before eating them. A diver in the Philippines also recently filmed a thresher using its tail to hunt — whipping and stunning a school of sardines. This marks the first video recording of the thresher’s tail slapping feeding behavior.

Thresher sharks are not dangerous to people, in fact, we are lucky to have such an interesting predator living the Santa Monica Bay. And, it’s just one of over 30 species of cartilaginous sharks, rays, and skates (known scientifically as “elasmobranchs”) that live in or pass through the Bay – ranging from the cartoon-like shovelnose guitarfish to the speedy shortfin mako shark. The diversity of habitats in the Bay helps provide food and shelter for these sharks, skates, and rays.

Many of these species are doing well locally, but unfortunately, sharks aren’t faring so well globally.  The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that 30% of shark and ray species globally are threatened or near-threatened with extinction. Unfortunately, the inhumane practice of shark finning is one of the biggest threats to elasmobranchs – up to 73 million sharks are killed each year to support the global shark fin industry.

California has been a significant market for shark fin in the past, which catalyzed the enactment of AB 376, state legislation that prohibits the possession, sale, and distribution of detached shark fins in California. Regrettably, the US government is considering a measure that would threaten California’s shark fin law, along with similar shark protections passed by several other states.

Please make your voice heard by signing this online petition to tell your representative to keep state shark fin trade laws intact.

— Sarah Sikich
Heal the Bay’s Coastal Resources Director, Science & Policy