Juvenile great white sharks have been hanging out in hot spots close to Southern California shores because the water is warmer, there is an abundance of stingrays and there are fewer predators, biologists tell USA Today.
Sharks have been seen regularly off the coast in Southern California since 2015 and nurseries have been discovered near Ventura, Oxnard, Santa Monica Bay, Huntington Beach and Dana Point. Shark attacks have also been on the rise.
“We’ve seen the number of babies in Southern California steadily increase over the last 10 years,” said Chris Lowe, a professor of marine biology at California State University-Long Beach and director of the school’s Shark Lab. “That’s a sign that we’re doing some things right and that our coastal ocean is getting healthier.”
Biologists at the Shark Lab started tagging juvenile white sharks about ten years ago. They found that they stuck around during the summer before
