Sharks as big as a bus seen off California after 30-year hiatus

The basking shark is a 'bizarre, unstudied species,' says shark expert Chris Lowe.

Imagine a bus with a tail attached to it.

That’s how shark expert Chris Lowe describes the basking shark, the second-largest shark species — smaller only than the whale shark — that has been causing a buzz off the Southern California coast the past month after being rarely seen for three decades.

Basking sharks been spotted recently off of Santa Barbara and Ventura, and as far south as the Santa Monica Bay and San Pedro, by whale-watching charters.

“They are huge. They have a huge mouth … it literally looks like a 55-gallon drum in the water,” Lowe said.

But don’t worry, unlike their sharp-toothed cousins, they won’t bite.

“You should only be scared if you’re krill,” he said.

Lowe said the decline of basking sharks can be attributed, in part, to Canadian fishermen killing them when they were getting caught in salmon nets and ruining the catch.

“They’d put cutters on their boats and ram them when they’d see them,” Lowe said. “We think, in the Pacific, that could have hurt the population.”

Lowe said not much is known about the sharks, calling them one of those “bizarre, unstudied species.”

He said the recent sightings could mean the basking shark population is starting to recover, or climate change is having an impact on where they go. It could also mean there is an abundance of plankton and krill, this spring, offering more food for them in local waters.

“Maybe they are an early warning system that we’ll have a productive season,” he said. “Basking sharks like to eat krill and small fish. Maybe that’s a good sign.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, basking sharks are a “species of concern.” Among the reasons for the designation, the NOAA said, are the apparent reduction in numbers, the lack of a recovery in population size despite around 50 years without being targeted and lack of information on basic aspects of their biology.

Basking sharks are dark grey to brown. They swim slowly and have large fins that are floppy and sometimes hang to the side; on occasion they can leap out of the water. They can reach up to 45 feet in length.

Experts don’t know how old basking sharks are when they first reproduce, where they have their young, what the range of their movements is or the structure of their populations, according to NOAA.

Historically, their populations have been thought to be large but more recently only a few have been seen in any given year.

For the past month, however, they’ve been spotted almost daily near Santa Barbara and Ventura by Island Packers charters, which depart out of Ventura and the Channel Islands Harbor. Ten were seen in mid-April, with three circling a charter boat.

Cherryl Connally, co-owner of Island Packers, said the sightings were plentiful a few weeks ago, with 10 to 15 spotted on individual trips.

“Many years ago, we saw a lot along the coast,” she said. “This is something new and different and we are all excited about it. The sightings we’ve had have been way over the top.”

Connally said it’s unclear if they’ll stick around. “We just don’t know when we’re going to see them,” she said.

Kristin Campbell, a naturalist for the Los Angeles and Orange County American Cetacean Society, got to see the basking sharks up close a few weeks ago near Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the Channel Islands.

“I think their population is recovering, so I think we’re starting to see them more and more,” said Campbell, a photographer on Newport Coastal Adventures.

She said she was blown away by the shark’s size.

“It’s very big and kind of similar to a whale shark,” she said. “It’s dorsal fin is massive.”

For Campbell, who spends most days out in the ocean with whales off Newport Beach, seeing sharks come to the surface is a treat.

“Any kind of shark we see is great, but especially one that is so rarely seen,” she said. “They are seeing more and more because their populations are rebounding.”