MONTEREY, Calif.- There's something unusual lurking in our waters. While they look like great white sharks, we're actually talking about salmon sharks. We first told you earlier this month, the sharks have been spotted dead off the coast. About two dozen have washed up this year, all the way from Half Moon Bay, to Marina. A shark expert we spoke to thinks its natural, maybe from a bio-toxin that only affects the species.
But we decided to find out where these salmon sharks are coming from. Scientists at Cal State Monterey Bay tell us salmon sharks aren't common in our area. But there's two places in the world where they might be coming from.
"So you can find them off the cost of North America as well as off the coast of Asia. You don't typically find them this far south. But you know as cold water can move south, they'll often come down," said CSUMB professor Jerick Bergsma.
Salmon shark experts with Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Center said they're trying to figure out why young sharks are washing ashore. They said the males typically stay in waters near Japan and the females usually stay in even colder waters.
"They get their name because they have kind of a cold water affinity. They're very common up near Alaska, where they feed on water salmon and other cold water fish," Bergsma said.
Shark experts said Monterey Bay isn't seeing a huge influx of them. But if you see one, there's a few things you should know and be aware of.
"It's a large shark. They can get to be quite large. They're in the same family as the great white sharks and the mako sharks. They are very large, fast predators," Bergsma said.
Marine biologists said even though salmon sharks are predators, like the great white sharks, they typically feed on marine mammals and humans aren't what they're after.
