Marine safety officials posted warning signs up and down the beach after 10 sharks were spotted swimming just off the Long Beach peninsula in Southern California on Wednesday. The sharks, all juveniles and all great whites, were seen swimming about 50 yards from the beach, drawing a crowd of onlookers – some even wading into the water to get a closer look.
Officials issued a 24-hour advisory and posted signs but refrained from closing the water or the beach entirely.
“They have not acted in any sort of threatening behavior. The water is not closed, the beach is not closed. We just want people to know that they’re out there,” Capt. Cameron Abel, with the Long Beach Fire Department’s Marine Safety Division, told ABC7.
Reports indicate that most of the sharks spotted in Long Beach were in the 6-foot range.
Further south, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department helicopter captured video of great whites swimming near the shoreline of Capistrano Beach.
According to the Orange County Register, Deputy Brian Stockbridge can be heard in the video warning paddleboarders, “You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks. They are advising you exit the water in a calm manner. The sharks are as close as the surfline.”
OC Lifeguards Chief Jason Young told the Register they had recently dropped a shark advisory after previous sightings, but following these reports it’s back on.
“We haven’t had any reports of anyone being bumped or charged, just observations of them either swimming or breaching,” he said.
