A Great Start!

Day 1 at the Farallones was a great start to the 2022 season. We identified and documented 14 individual white sharks! These sharks ranged from 13 to 17 feet in length but were all fairly thin. This thin body condition is due to having just completed a 2,000 – 5,000 km migration from the ‘White Shark Café’, a location in the open ocean about halfway between Baja, MX and Hawaii. Previous tagging studies have provided information on where these white sharks go throughout the year and given that this is late September, these sharks have only been coastal for about a month or so. As the season progresses, these white shark will hopefully have a successful 4 months of hunting elephant seals, sea lions, and harbor seals and their body condition will improve from thin to plump in time to migrate back offshore in January or February.

One shark in particular that was very nice to see. Sickle-Fin, who we saw eating an elephant seal on November 28, 2020 and mentioned in this string of updates, was back again at the island. This is one the first sharks that I saw in my first season back in 2008 at Tomales Point. Back then, he was 13 ft long and between 2008 and 2010, he was an annual visitor at Tomales before he started to bravely venture out to the Farallones in 2011. On Sunday, we estimated him to be around 16 ft, and since 2011, he has been a Farallon resident during the fall months.

At prime foraging grounds such as the Farallones, there is likely high competition for valuable resources and territory. Therefore, newcomers need to be able to defend themselves while attempting to effectively engorge themselves on seals. Evidence of this competition, such as bite marks left by other white sharks, are observed and documented whenever we see them.

Thank you so much to all of you who have contributed to this research. We hope to keep monitoring the health of this population along with witnessing the changes of individuals throughout the season.

Thanks!