A surge in shark sightings has terrified Southern California beach-goers this summer, but a legendary shark tracker says swimmers can breathe easy.
The idea that local beaches are suddenly infested with bloodthirsty man-eating great whites is total “garbage,” according to veteran shark tracer Keith Poe, who has logged more than 33 years tracking one of the ocean’s deadliest apex predators.
A series of jaw-dropping shark sightings off the coast, including a great white leaping directly out of the water behind and unsuspecting surfer, has people on high-alert.
While frantic tourists and locals might think 2026 is turning into a real-life Jaws movie along the Golden State coast, Poe told The Post the dramatic uptick in sightings comes down to basic science as rising temperatures and an underwater buffet draws them in.
“Here’s the way it works,” Poe revealed. “From San Diego to Point Conception, all of that area is primarily known as a juvenile white shark area, and the ones that move in close to the beach are governed by two things: temperature and food.”
When coastal waters plunge below 60 degrees in the winter, young Great Whites — defined as juveniles up to 10 feet long — go south toward Mexico because their bodies can’t handle the frigid chill. Currently, as waters warm and El Niño conditions cook the coast, those juveniles swim north into shallow, sandy SoCal bays like Santa Monica.
Their target is easy prey on the ocean floor, like halibut, skates, and rays right off the shoreline. “These are fish-eating juveniles,” Poe insisted. “They could care less about people. There is no danger. They’re there for only one reason: food.”
But there are red flags that beachgoers shouldn’t ignore. Swimmers should think twice about entering the water if seals or sea lions are congregating nearby and birds are diving around them, Poe said, as those are signs of a feeding frenzy that could attract bigger predators.
“If there’s marine mammals in the area, birds diving, eating food, that’s not an area you want to go hang out in,” Poe warned.
As great whites grow, their teeth, bodies, and appetites changes, allowing them to graduate from fish to hunting much bigger meals with high-blubber.
Poe pointed to areas farther north around Point Conception, San Miguel Island and San Simeon as sites where heavyweight predators are more likely to congregate, near stretches of the coast where sea lions and seals pile onto the shore.
While terrified swimmers are spotting more and more single fins in the water, Poe says that they’re not out there stalking sunbathers, but that the great white shark population has significantly increased. Poe, who participated in National Geographic’s “Counting Jaws,” said research has documented a major rebound in white sharks off California. He credits decades of protections and the decline of commercial gill nets that have historically killed sharks as bycatch.
Before restrictions were introduced, Poe said fishing nets close to the coastline decimated populations of juvenile sharks. “Once they got rid of those from three miles out, they started to make a come back,” he said.
Female great whites take roughly 30 years to mature, Poe said, meaning sharks born decades ago as protections took effect decades ago are only now reaching adulthood.
More sharks don’t automatically mean more shark attacks, though.
“Incidents involving a shark biting a person are very rare in California and in most cases not believed to be predatory attempts, but rather the result of exploratory bites from sharks investigating unusual objects in their environment, such as kayaks, or the result of a shark mistaking a person for their usual prey,” wrote the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“There is no magic thing that’s brought a whole monster bunch of sharks in here all of a sudden, and everybody’s in great dangers,” Poe added. “That that’s laughable to me.”
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