Watch: Great White Shark Feeding Frenzy Prompts Bay Area Beach Warning For Swimmers

HALF MOON BAY, CA — A drone video showing multiple great white sharks feeding on a dead whale near Half Moon Bay has prompted experts to warn surfers and swimmers to avoid the area.

Sam Rigling, a drone operator from Pacifica, filmed the scene Thursday at Martin's Beach, a few miles south of Half Moon Bay. The footage shows as many as six juvenile and adult great white sharks feeding on the whale carcass.

"I spent most of the day filming multiple Great Whites tear apart this whale carcass," Rigling wrote in the social media post. "I must of seen 6-8 different sharks throughout the day. A handful of juveniles and 2 or 3 large Whites"

Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach, told SFGATE that sharks feeding on dead whales is common behavior because the carcasses attract sharks for miles and provide an easy food source.

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People should avoid swimming or surfing nearby because feeding sharks can become defensive and mistake humans for other animals approaching the carcass.

The sighting comes during what Lowe previously described to Patch as a potentially "sharky" summer along the California coast, with warmer ocean conditions bringing great white sharks back earlier and in greater numbers. A similar phenomenon happened in 2015, he said.

"It almost looked like the white shark population exploded overnight," Lowe said.

Warmer ocean temperatures, an ongoing marine heat wave and changing nursery habitat are creating conditions similar to 2015, when juvenile great white shark activity surged along the California coast, Lowe added.

The warning is not just about sharks. Stingrays are also likely to be something to watch this summer, Lowe said, because the same warm-water conditions that can draw young white sharks closer into California's waters can also support the stingray populations they feed on.

In 2015, Lowe said researchers saw baby white sharks in Monterey Bay for the first time. Juvenile white sharks generally have a lower temperature limit of about 60 degrees, and Monterey Bay’s spring waters have historically been too cold, often in the mid- to upper 50s.

But waters off Santa Cruz warmed to nearly 70 degrees in 2015, Lowe said. Since then, researchers have documented a nursery aggregation in the Monterey Bay area.

Lowe said the pattern reflects a broader shift: California’s coastal waters have been warming over the past 30 years, making parts of Northern California increasingly viable as nursery habitat for young white sharks.

“This is becoming a perfect storm,” Lowe said. "This is what we think is going to make SoCal the white shark Mecca this summer."

Patch Staffer Chris Lindahl contributed to this report.