It’s been nearly a decade since hammerhead sharks were first spotted off the Southern California coast, but their presence is now more pronounced, likely due to rising ocean temperatures.
A fisherman captured footage this week from the Malibu pier, showing a hammerhead swimming around 100 meters from Surfrider Beach.
“Oh my god, it’s a hammerhead shark. It’s a hammerhead shark,” exclaimed someone in the video.
According to Nate Jarosz, vice president of animal management for fish and invertebrates at the Aquarium of the Pacific, sightings of hammerhead sharks around Southern California are uncommon but tend to occur when ocean temperatures increase. This information surfaced during a report to KTLA5.
“Most species of hammerhead sharks prefer deeper waters for hunting, and they don’t usually venture close to the shore,” Jarosz added.
Recent years have seen notable increases in ocean temperatures in California, particularly influenced by El Niño; for example, waters around Santa Monica and Oceanside exceeded 75 degrees in late July.
According to a Thursday update from the National Weather Service, El Niño is “intensifying,” indicating there’s more than a 90% chance of a significant event during the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn and winter in 2026 and 2027.
In the eastern equatorial Pacific, seawater temperatures surged by 2°C above normal levels.
The hammerhead observed near Malibu was sleek and, as noted, this species can grow up to 13 feet and primarily feeds on fish and squid. The last documented sighting of a hammerhead near a Southern California beach was in 2015.
Interestingly, there has also been a sharp rise in stingray sightings, with Orange County reporting more than double the incidents this year compared to 2022.
