Jogging on a local beach, I spot a knot of people at the water’s edge. A few feet away, in thigh-high waves, a man in a wetsuit holds a silver fish, wriggling in his hands. It seems unremarkable, until I notice its teeth: row upon row, gleaming white and razor sharp. Out of its element, writhing with all its might, the young shark looks strangely vulnerable. My first— and only—encounter with one of the most formidable predators on the planet makes me wonder: Should we fear them—or fear for them? The answer is both.
The Red Triangle, which stretches from Bodega Bay in the north to the Farallones Islands in the west and Monterey Bay in the south, has gained an ominous reputation as a danger zone, but human-shark encounters of any type are rare—and rarely fatal. According to an analysis published earlier this year, about 235 “incidents” have occurred in California since 1950, resulting in seventeen deaths. Slightly more than a third happened in the Red Triangle—often in “Sharktober,” a season that extends from September into November.
Each autumn great white sharks migrate across the Pacific to the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the Red Triangle, where seals and sea lions cluster in large colonies. Here the lords of the sea feed heavily to build strength and stamina before the winter months.
More than 400 million years of evolution have honed sharks into consummate hunters. Masters of stealth and surprise, great whites can detect scents and distant vibrations and, through specialized electroreceptive organs, sense the subtle electrical fields produced by living creatures. Their torpedo-shaped torsos can accelerate with astonishing speed, ambushing prey from below.
Despite this prowess, sharks are disappearing from many seas. Worldwide, populations of oceanic sharks and rays have plummeted by about seventy percent since 1970. The primary causes: overfishing and “bycatch” (being caught in hooks or nets intended for other fish). Sharks are especially vulnerable because they develop slowly, reaching reproductive maturity at about twenty-six years for males and thirty-three for females. They cannot replace themselves at anything near the rate at which industrial fishing can remove them.
Yet unlike the alarming losses elsewhere, the white sharks along the California coast have not declined but appear to be increasing. Their recovery, if it holds, would mark an extraordinary conservation success—one that has been decades in the making.
No single measure or action protected the region’s whites. Over years of monitoring, researchers documented the toll that indiscriminate fishing was taking. Their findings spurred conservation groups, such as Shark Stewards, into advocacy. Voters and lawmakers responded. Beginning in 1990, California progressively restricted the use of gill and trammel nets, which can entangle marine life, and in 1994 specifically banned the capture or killing of white sharks. Meanwhile, federal protections allowed depleted populations of seals and sea lions—their favored prey— to rebound. Marine sanctuaries continue to safeguard crucial feeding grounds.
Together, these efforts have created the conditions great whites need to survive: no targeted fishing, fewer accidental deaths, abundant food and a healthy habitat. So this Sharktober, I take heart in their return to the Red Triangle. The presence of these magnificent creatures may be one of the best signs we have that the wild ocean around us is still working.
