Monterey Bay White Sharks

Say hello to one of our wonderful summer interns, Ann Tokoyoda! Ann is a rising junior majoring in Marine Biology at the University of Hawaii. She is interning at the Block lab, studying the use of eDNA in estimating white shark abundance! 🦈

Say hello to another one of our wonderful summer interns, Naflah Mohammed! Naflah is a rising junior majoring in Evolutionary Biology and Public Policy at Duke University. She is interning at the Block lab with PhD student Raksha Doddabele, studying the use of eDNA in estimating white shark abundance! 🦦

🦈🎨 Name reveal time! Sprinkles gets her name from scratches accumulated from interactions with seal and sea lion prey 🧁. Pizzaface earns his name from a telling slice across his face 🍕 And Batman has given us a front-row seat to some remarkable dorsal fin wound healing over the years 🦇 Not all of our shark names are this literal - but we love it when they are

Recently two dead whales have washed up on our local beaches here in central California, one in Watsonville on Sunset State Beach and the other right here on the beach at Hopkins marine station in Pacific Grove. These incidents while sad also highlight the important role whales play in marine food webs.

While white sharks predate on smaller marine mammals like sea lions and elephant seals they don’t typically hunt whales, but they will scavenge on whale carcasses. When a whale dies their bodies float and become a massive food source drawing in animals from all around the surrounding area including white sharks and other shark species. The sharks will feed on the main body of the whale, usually avoiding the pectoral fins and flukes. The whale’s body will eventually lose buoyancy as it is consumed and decomposes and it will then sink to the bottom of the ocean floor where it will become a food source for scavenging deep sea species.

To learn more about white shark foraging on whale carcasses check out the following article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00655

Photo credit: Andrew Read and Jeff Milisen

Happy World Ocean Day! 🌊🦭🪼🪸🐠🐟🐙🦀🦈

While every day is World Ocean Day for our Monterey Bay White Shark team we hope you are spending today celebrating our incredible oceans and all of the amazing life they support!

Oceans cover over 70% of our planet and are vital for global health. They are home to a diverse group of plants and animals that make up the many marine ecosystems we see across our planet. They also help regulate our global climate system, produce much of our oxygen, and provide key resources for billions of people. But our oceans, and their inhabitants, face a rising number of risks from warming climates, pollution, and overfishing among many others.

So how can you help?
1. Spend time in your local environment, even if you don’t live near a beach visit a local state or national park and learn about your local watershed and how it connects back to the ocean

2. Support sustainable seafood practices and buy sustainably harvested fish

3. Participate in a local beach cleanup

4. Reduce your daily single use plastic consumption

5. Support research and conservation groups like ours working to understand and protect our oceans and their wildlife

Today UCSC Costa Lab undergraduate Anna Ortiz presented her poster on her project studying predator bites on elephant seals! Anna looked at over 100 observations of predator bites on elephant seals and created a standardized database to document these observations!

Swipe to see first a bite from a white shark and swipe once more for a bite from an orca.

Seal pictures taken by researchers at Año Nuevo under NMFS permit No. 28742