California safeguard protecting beachgoers from sharks on life support, expert warns

A renowned shark research center in California is in danger of shutting down after the state pulled funding for a program that provides safeguards against attacks.

Chris Lowe, the director of the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach, told Fox News Digital that the program monitors great white sharks along Southern California’s coastline.

“In 2018, we received funding from the state of California to start the California Shark Beach Safety Program. And that was because there were more and more white sharks being seen along the California coastline, particularly along public beaches,” Lowe said.

“And this raised a concern for lifeguards who are responsible for keeping people safe. So they asked us, why are the sharks here? And are they a risk to people?” Lowe said. “And at the time, we didn’t really know.”

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Lowe said that after the program launched they have been able to use the funds to tag over 300 juvenile white sharks, with 235 of the sharks with active transmitters.

He said that they chose to tag great white sharks since 97% of bites in California in the last century are from these large predators.

The shark expert explained that the program also has 120 acoustic receivers along the sunny California coastline to “listen” for tagged sharks, as well as drone equipment.

“This enables us to provide lifeguards with data about what sharks are off their beaches. How long are they going to be there, what are they doing, and when are they going to leave,” Lowe said.

Lowe said that their research has found that sharks are “around people all the time” and that they “largely ignore people.”

“We also use drones, and that’s been an important part of our monitoring as well, because then we could see where sharks were in proximity to people and then address questions about what the risk is,” Lowe said. “And some of our data have indicated that sharks are around people all the time in Southern California. And the sharks largely ignore people.”

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Without the program, Lowe said, lifeguards would not be able to properly manage Southern California beaches from sharks.

“We don’t think that if the program gets shut down, we’re not going to see a spike in shark bites. What we think is the monitoring is helping lifeguards better manage beaches,” Lowe said.

“For example, let’s say a nine-foot shark, which is still a juvenile, is off a public beach, and it’s been there for days or weeks, and lifeguards know that from our acoustic telemetry monitoring data or even our drone data, but no surfers are reported seeing that shark,” he said. “Normally they would close a beach, but why close the beach if the shark is there all the time and nobody’s seeing it, and it’s not bothering anyone?”

The shark expert explained that the lifeguards have a wealth of information available to help determine if the beach needs to be shut down.

“If a tagged shark is detected off the beach, lifeguards get that data right away from our real-time buoys, and then they can click on a link that will tell them about where that shark is, how big that shark is, where it’s been, and what they’ll see is that quite often these sharks have visited other beaches, or they’ve been at their beach for weeks or months at a time.”

He explained that lifeguards no longer need to shut down the beach, they can just post a public warning about a shark’s presence. 

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“In the past, anytime a white shark was seen off a beach, they would close the beach, or they pulled people out of the water,” Lowe said. “And now, they don’t have to close a beach. They’ll post signs warning the public that this is white shark habitat, but because of all the data we’ve accumulated over the last five years, they don’t have to shut the beach down.”

Lowe said that the local economy is negatively impacted if a beach is closed. 

“Every time they close the Southern California beach, that results in an economic impact on that community,” Lowe said. “Just by learning more about the sharks, we’ve reduced the number of beach closures which have economic impacts on the California community.”

“What it’s done is it saved our coastal communities a lot of money from unnecessary beach closures,” he said.

Lowe said that California has seen a rise in great white sharks in recent years, in part, because of continued conservation efforts.

“Our white shark numbers have been going up steadily, and that’s because white sharks have been protected in California since 1994,” Lowe said.

He said that an increased number of sharks in California’s oceans has “raised a big concern.”

“With increasing numbers of sharks, we just didn’t know if that was going to increase the probability of people being bitten,” Lowe said. “And with young sharks using beaches as their nursery habitat, that raised a big concern because we have a lot of people in the water off Southern California year round and among the sharks.”

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Lowe said that if they do not raise funding from local supporters, they will be forced to shut down.

He said that funding was cut because of California’s “very poor” state budget this year.

“Our program was funded for five years and we received funding in 2018. We stretched that $3.75 million state funding to six years,” Lowe said. “We were been very frugal with our funds and getting a lot of good information.”

“Our funding runs out in June and because of state budget, is very poor this year,” he said. “It doesn’t look like we’re going to be refunded.”

He said that they are seeking private funding from individuals and foundations.

“We use a lot of technology in our shark research, and a lot of those tech companies are based here in California. So we’re kind of hoping that maybe some of our big tech companies might be willing to pitch in and help us out,” he said.