‘Larger than Usual’ Great White Shark Spotted off Malibu

• Expert Pegs Animal at 14–to–15 feet in Length Several Hundred Yards from Surfrider Beach

BY ANNE SOBLE

While the outside media reacts with its usual histrionics to a shark sighting, Malibuites, who know that large sharks, such as whites and makos, are fellow co-inhabitants of local waters, regard these sightings as a reminder to remain alert to the diverse species that are part of the area’s marine life.
On Thursday, the local coast was already in the spotlight because of an impending swell, but local videographer Dave Ogle ramped that up a notch when he captured footage of large great white shark while shooting offshore from a helicopter in the Surfrider Beach area for a client.
Ogle said that he was banking back toward the coast less than 450 yards out when he happened to look down and saw a shape in the water. Ogle, a longtime local resident, told the Malibu Surfside News he grew up in an ocean-oriented family and has always been around marine life, including sharks. Even so, his first reaction was that this might be a dolphin, until he realized it was too large.
Ogle said he videoed the shark for several minutes while hovering overhead. As soon as he got back on the ground, he said he contacted news agencies.
Ogle’s shark footage led at least one major network’s news, then hit the Internet quickly, spiraling from a report of a shark sighting to reports of a “shark attack off Malibu” in blog posts from Argentina to Zimbabwe.
Ogle’s video was also sent to Ralph Collier, a noted shark expert. Collier, who heads the Shark Research Committee, told The News, “It is a white shark, and although there is nothing on the water for scale, the hovering two-seater helicopter did provide some relationship of size [and] the shark appears to be about 14 or 15 feet in length.”
Collier also noted that the report of a decapitated sea lion washing up on the beach right after the sighting is consistent with great white activity as pinnipeds are their primary food source.
The shark researcher added, “There have been several juvenile and sub-adult white sharks that have been using Will Rogers/Sunset beaches as a possible feeding station for more than two weeks. Surfers have been reporting breaches by a 7–9 foot white shark at various times of day.”
Collier reiterated his contention that the ever growing local pinniped population—estimated at over 300,000 statewide—means that more sub-adult (such as this sighting) and larger adult whites are remaining in waters that were formerly host only to juvenile whites who pose no problems in human interaction.
Oceangoers have to remember that several species of large sharks swim in the waters off Malibu at all times. The presence of abundant numbers of sea lions and seals is an attractant.
That locals are able to keep this in perspective was evident in the numbers of surfers who turned out for Friday’s swell. The flip side of that might have been that there were so many surfers in the water that the sharks became wary of coming in too close.