Pismo Beach had its own version of Shark Week last week, with four separate shark sightings.
All of the sightings were highly credible, and authorities have reason to believe locals saw several different sharks at the beach, according to Tina Rose, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) Pismo Beach station public information officer.
The first shark was approximately 12 feet long, officials determined, while the other sharks were eight and six feet long. All four sharks were in the same region when spotted, Rose said, all south of the Pismo Beach pier, approximately 90 feet offshore.
Rose said she couldn’t say why the sharks would be in the same place for each sighting, but she knew sharks tended to gather for certain reasons.
“They do follow certain feeding trends,” Rose said. “They go where the food goes.”
Though CAL FIRE sometimes does receive false reports of shark sightings, all four of last week’s sightings were genuine, Rose said.
To establish a sighting’s credibility, CAL FIRE officials thoroughly question the person that reports a shark sighting, taking them through two pages of questions that include water conditions, shark size, other animals in the water and hometown of the person reporting the shark.
“A person who is from Fresno isn’t as credible as a person who lives here,” Rose said.
False shark sightings are easily discovered through this process, he said. “It would be nearly impossible to fake or to trick the fire chief,” Rose said.
Last week, firefighters in Pismo Beach also took Shark Week, an annual event on the Discovery Channel that features a week of shark-focused programming, into account. Rose said firefighters found no connection between the shark television specials and the shark sightings.
“I was there when the second gentleman reported it,” Rose said. “He doesn’t even own a television.”
The whole week was one-of-a-kind, Rose said. It was the first time anyone could remember four credible shark sightings in a single week.
CAL FIRE posted red flags and shark warning signs in response to the sighting.
“There’s a grave danger for the public to be surfing or swimming in waters that have a shark,” Rose said. “We have a duty to warn people.”
But CAL FIRE can only keep the signs up for five days after a sighting and the last sighting was on Aug. 5.
Even with the signs posted, people didn’t say out of the weren’t kept from the waters of Pismo Beach. Local surfer Larry Jensen went out in the water the day after the first sighting.
Jensen said he is afraid of sharks, but stays safe by paying attention to his surroundings while surfing.
“With the sightings, I think you have to take everything into consideration,” Jensen said. “Weather conditions, water conditions, how many people are in the water, when was the sighting, how credible was the sighting. When you’re in the water, know your surroundings.”
For instance, if there had been any seals in the water, Jensen said he would have stopped surfing and gone home right away.
Rose said despite the multiple shark sightings, CAL FIRE could not keep people from swimming or surfing at Pismo Beach. The most that could be done was to post signs and ensure that lifeguards were paying attention in case another shark showed up.
“Our lifeguards are trained to constantly scan the waters,” Rose said. “So if, for example, they did see a shark then they would order people out of the water.”
Pismo Beach’s own Shark Week had an uneventful finish, with a final sighting last Friday, there have been no attacks and no further sightings since then.