The 2007 white shark season was one for the record books. We literally broke every record we had established in the past and then wrote some new ones.

For the Guadalupe Island expeditions we completed a total of 21 trips in just 115 days, from August 3rd to November 27th. No other operator has ever completed that many trips in a single season. We now have completed a total of 96 trips to Guadalupe Island, nearly twice as many as any other operator. Most importantly our 100% safety record is still intact.

The 2007 Guadalupe trips were by far the most successful trips in history.
We actually had white sharks all day, every day the entire season. We averaged 5 to 7 individual white sharks per day and 10 to 12 individual white sharks per trip. We did observe a record total of 20 individual white sharks on a single trip in August, but we also had a record total of 16 individual sharks in just one day on November 25th.

The Guadalupe white shark population appears to be steadily growing and the sharks look to be in good health and very active. We did see many of our favorite sharks again this year. Patches was around from early August until mid-October (this was Patches' 6th year with us). Cal Ripfin was seen on nearly every trip right up to our very last trip in November. Zapata, Top Notch, CC (Cut Caudal), Rock Star, Scrapper, Tagger, Louis Jr., Bite Head #1 and Bite Head #2 were all seen regularly throughout the season, to name a few. There were many new sharks this year, which is always very exciting for us. We will be updating the database over the next few weeks and will have a new total population count by early next year.

Over the past seven years we have been observing the seasonal population patterns of the Guadalupe white sharks and there is definitely a consistent distribution of the sexes at the island over the 4 months we are there. Invariably we have observed only male sharks in the early season and we do not see any female sharks until late September or early October. Accordingly, on our first Solmar V trip in early August we had our first white shark within 40 minutes and within 2 hours we had 5 white sharks, all males. By mid-October we observed a definite shift in the balance with more female sharks arriving. Finally, by late November the majority had switched to more female than male sharks.

On October 4th we witnessed a predation event on a young elephant seal by a large white shark. This feeding event began with a subsurface attack and the e-seal was beheaded on the first strike. We noticed a large blood stain forming on the surface close to shore and only 100 yards from the Solmar V. Geronimo and I jumped into our inflatable skiff and sped over to the scene. I was able to film most of the event from a safe distance considering we were in an inflatable boat. However, the local fishermen and researchers were also alerted to this happening and they raced over to the scene as well. The research boat got way too close and the shark, defending its kill, attacked the fiberglass panga chasing them off to a safer distance before returning to consume its well- earned meal. The feeding lasted approximately 10 minutes. (I will have the video of this up on the websites soon).

Even though we see these regularly at the Farallon Islands we have only documented two e-seal and one fur seal predations at Guadalupe Island. We know that white sharks do prey on marine mammals at Guadalupe, but so far no one has been able to document any instances probably because they occur more often down deep or at night.

On November 4th we had an incident that was pretty darned exciting. CC, or Cut Caudal, one of our regular sharks, accidentally ran into one of the main cages on the Searcher. CC came up nearly vertical about 20 feet away from the cage and grabbed one of the hang baits, which he is known to do on a regular basis. However, on this particular day he swam right into the portside cage's viewing window. As CC took the bait he instinctively rolled his eyes back, couldn't see where he was going and accidentally swam directly into the viewing window. CC's entire head went inside the cage and he was stopped just short of his pectoral fins. Well, we all know that white sharks have no reverse and CC was too far in to turn around. He tried to turn, but he could not quite get his snout to clear the corner. He rolled on his side and began to thrash up and down trying to free himself. Being a rather large white shark he just ended up making the opening bigger by simply removing the front of the cage so he could get out of the cage. CC literally removed all the lower front vertical bars and the horizontal bar that connects all of the vertical bars to the main frame of the front cage panel and then swam away. What was amazing is that it took only about 10 seconds to do this. What was even more amazing was that there were 2 divers in the cage at the time and they thought that this was the coolest thing they had ever experienced and walked away completely unscathed. The divers also said that CC was just fine too!

We were all very relieved that no one was injured. We were also pleased that our divers listened to the safety briefing prior to diving and followed the instructions and evacuated the cage when this incident occurred. One diver utilized the emergency escape hatch and somehow managed to film the entire event. We learned something from this and we will take appropriate measures to prevent this from happening again.

When we said, "You can get face-to-face with the ultimate predator" this is not what we had in mind!

The Searcher's cages are 6 years old now and we have learned a great deal since we first built them. We are going to take this opportunity to design and build new state-of-the-art cages that will be safer and stronger. We will unveil the new cages in spring 2008.

ScubaRadio with the Great White Sharks of Guadalupe

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