This year has seen multiple reports of great white sharks off the waters of Southern California beaches, but researchers say they may be starting to clear out.
Recent weeks have seen a marked decline in shark activity along beaches in Los Angeles and Orange counties, shark researcher Chris Lowe told NBC4 media partner KPCC.
Lowe, who heads the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach and has been tagging great white sharks in Southern California for about a decade, said that after bouncing around "hot spot" beaches like Dana Point, Balboa Shores and Santa Monica, most baby and juvenile great whites have left and possibly headed south to warmers waters in Baja California.
"This time of year when our water temperatures dip below, you know, 62 degrees, is normally when they start to make that move," Lowe said.
In recent years, the sharks haven't followed their normal migratory pattern, probably because the El Niño weather pattern kept winter water temperatures in Sothern California comfortably warn for juvenile great whites.
