Hammer time: Rare hammerhead shark gives Malibu pier fishermen a shock

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Set us as preferred A hammerhead shark paid a rare visit to the Southern California coast this week in what is likely a predictable outcome of unusually warm ocean temperatures.Fisherman Ariel Kohanchi was out around noon Thursday on the Malibu Pier for the first time in about a month, according to a video he published on YouTube, when he and others fishing on the pier spotted the distinct hammerhead shape just below the surface of the water.

“Hammerhead.Hammerhead.

Hammerhead.Hammerhead,” Kohanchi said in disbelief, the video shows.

“Oh my god!”The shark made a few circles, its fins at times breaching the water’s surface as stunned fishermen looked on.One of them apparently hooked the fish, but the shark spat out the bait, according to Kohanchi’s account of events in the video.

Climate & Environment Since 2018, the California Beach Shark Safety program at Cal State Long Beach has tagged great whites in local waters and shared their locations with lifeguards.Hammerhead sharks typically prefer warmer waters than those found in Southern California, and the last sighting near the coast was over a decade ago, according to the iNaturalist species-sighting database.A confluence of factors has made water temperatures in the area unusually warm, said University of California San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography shark specialist Brendan Talwar.

Late summer and early fall bring the warmest temperatures of the year, he said.Combined with a particularly strong El Niño cycle this year and the effects of climate change, conditions have been ripe this season for warmer-water species to travel north, and vice versa.

“It’s uncommon but not impossible.If someone had asked at the beginning of this summer what shark species we should expect...

I would’ve definitely said hammerheads,” Talwar said.Getting t...