Tag: Morro Bay

After fatal attack on surfer, one great white shark grabs spotlight

After a fatal shark attack involving a bodyboarder on Christmas Eve off Morro Bay, Ca., a prominent researcher could not say whether one of the great white sharks tagged by his group was involved.

After a shark killed a bodyboarder on Christmas Eve off Morro Bay, Ca., a prominent researcher could not say whether one of the great white sharks tagged by his group was involved.

“I’ve gotten a lot of messages because of the unfortunate fatal shark encounter at The Pit (Morro Bay),” Michael Domeier, president of the Marine Conservation Science Institute, stated on Instagram. “A male bodyboarder was bitten and he succumbed to the injuries. First, my heart goes out to the family and friends of the victim.

“Second, no I don’t know if the shark was Poe Girl, or any of our other tagged sharks. The probability of it being one of our sharks is very low, since we’ve tagged such a small percentage of the overall population.”

The victim, a 31-year-old man, has not been officially identified.

Poe Girl, an adult female white shark measuring 17-plus feet, was tagged off Point Conception for MCSI by Keith Poe on Nov. 23, 2017.

On Christmas Day, Poe Girl pinged a position 24 miles south of Morro Bay. Domeier acknowledged to FTW Outdoors that “she could have easily been in Morro Bay that day, but that’s all one can say about it. There are so many other white sharks around, there’s no way to say it was her.”

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MCSI-tagged sharks can be tracked by the public via an app, but a shark has to surface under the right conditions to reveal a new position.

Since Poe Girl was tagged she has traveled extensively to the west and south, even inside Mexico’s Gulf of California, or Sea of Cortez. Understandably, she’s often detected closer to Central California home waters, where she and other white sharks prey seasonally on elephant seals.

In mid-November, Poe Girl was positioned beyond Surf Beach at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, south of Morro Bay.

Fatal shark encounters occurred at Surf Beach almost exactly two years apart in October 2010 and 2012. A nonfatal bite, also attributed to a white shark, occurred in 2014. (Surf Beach is accessible to the public.)

In October, Poe Girl was positioned off El Capitan State Beach near Santa Barbara.

“She is not your everyday Southern California juvenile; she’s a massive adult that you should avoid,” Domeier cautioned surfers at the time, via Instagram.

Poe told FTW Outdoors that on a tagging expedition to Point Conception last month, “I had white sharks at my boat hundreds of times. There are so many, it’s incredible.”

So there’s nothing that implicates Poe Girl in the Christmas Eve attack (or any other), besides the fact that she was in the general vicinity at the time.

Her presence might be unnerving, but most surfers are aware that they share the ocean with untagged sharks, too, and accept the extremely low risk of being bitten every time they paddle out.

–Top image shows Morro Rock   

Sea otter catches shark in extremely rare species interaction

A sea otter surfaced with a large shark in its grasp recently, to the astonishment of onlookers. But what happened next is not clear.

A sea otter surfaced with a large shark in its grasp recently, to the astonishment of onlookers. But what happened next is not clear.

The accompanying images, captured last Tuesday by Don Henderson and Alice Cahill inside California’s Morro Bay, represent the first documentation of a southern sea otter catching a horn shark, according to Michael D. Harris of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“To my knowledge (and a group of colleagues), this is the first documented horn shark capture by a sea otter,” Harris, a sea otter biologist, told For The Win Outdoors. “There are reports of sea otters capturing skates and rays, but this is the first report of a shark. Sea otters will feed on fish, but it’s a very rare observation in California.”

Photo: Don Henderson

Southern sea otters off Central California prey largely on invertebrates, such as urchins, crabs, abalone, and clams. Northern sea otters, from Washington to Alaska, more commonly prey on fish, which could include sharks.

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The images were shared via social media Saturday by the nonprofit, Sea Otter Savvy.

“If you watch sea otters long enough you will see a reasonable sample of bottom-dwelling sea life brought to the surface out of hunger or curiosity,” the group, dedicated to sea otter conservation, wrote on Facebook. “We are not sure which was the case here but these ‘jaw-dropping’ images are the first known record of a ‘foraging-like’ interaction between a sea otter and this creature.”

Photo: Alice Cahill

Followers were asked to guess the identity the shark species.

Horn sharks are solitary predators that shelter during the day. By night they hunt mollusks and crustaceans, which they crush with strong jaws and molar-like teeth.

It’s not clear if the otter was attempting to prey on the horn shark, since the observation was brief. However, sea otters do feed on the surface, using their chests as trays.

Social media followers also wondered if it was a playful, curious, or defensive behavior.

Sea Otter Savvy, noting the size of the shark, stated on Twitter: “Not surprisingly, while some nibbling may have occurred, the prey was not consumed.”

Harris, who was called to the scene but missed out on the observation, could not provide an answer.

“Unfortunately, we don’t know the outcome,” he said. “Was this a foraging event?  Did the otter eat the shark or attempt to eat it?  If not a foraging event, what was driving this sea otter behavior?”

After reviewing the photos, Harris said he was “fairly certain” that the otter is an adult female.

One person, referring to the face-to-face embrace in the photos, joked on Twitter: “They are star-crossed lovers, and no reality can convince me otherwise.”

–Images courtesy of Don Henderson (top two) and Alice Cahill