A July 2015 report described 14 juvenile great white sharks repeatedly appearing near a Monterey Bay state beach pier, alongside one large adult. A local researcher suggested changing ocean currents associated with a strengthening El Niño could help explain the gathering—but the reporting did not establish that El Niño caused it. The sighting was in Monterey Bay, not San Francisco Bay, and it is not evidence of a current Bay Area shark gathering.
What happened near Monterey Bay in 2015?
In July 2015, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that 14 juvenile great white sharks had been seen repeatedly near a pier at a state beach in Monterey Bay. The report also described one additional, large adult. It characterized the gathering as unprecedented and said researchers were struck by the number of young sharks appearing in one area.
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The report’s geography matters: Monterey Bay is on California’s Central Coast. “Bay Area” in the headline should not be read as a claim that the sharks were in San Francisco Bay. The event is also more than a decade old; it should not be presented as a new 2026 sighting.
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Did El Niño bring the sharks north?
The 2015 article linked the gathering to a contemporaneous interpretation that a rookery had shifted north as El Niño strengthened. That is a proposed explanation, not a demonstrated cause. The available account does not establish that El Niño drove these particular great whites north, nor does it provide a direct great-white study proving the mechanism.
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The Chronicle quoted Sean Van Sommeran, identified as executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, saying: “It’s the same process of dynamics and water currents that has driven sea lions north.” The statement is Van Sommeran’s interpretation as quoted in the news report, not an independently verified finding about the sharks.
What other California shark research can—and can’t—tell us
A 2022 study in Frontiers in Marine Science examined basking sharks in the California Current ecosystem. It analyzed 624 sightings from 1962 to 2018, including systematic aerial-survey records from 7,076 flights. Basking sharks were recorded on 262 of those flights; the last presence in the systematic surveys was in 1988.
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The study authors reported that systematic surveys recorded nearly 4,000 basking sharks in 1966, the highest annual count in their data. Mean group size in those surveys fell from 57.2 sharks in the 1960s to 24.0 in the 1980s. Their models associated a higher probability of basking-shark sightings with lower sea-surface temperatures and more chlorophyll a; basking-shark presence was also correlated with ENSO, the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
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What do reports from 2026 show?
A Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County release dated September 16, 2026 described unusual marine sightings in Southern California: hammerhead sharks off Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, a whale shark off Malibu, and mahi-mahi near the Southern Channel Islands. The museum said some models predicted a very large El Niño and discussed how El Niño can alter currents, move open-water species beyond their usual ranges and reduce upwelling that supports the marine food web.
The museum called the developing forecast a “super El Niño,” but that is its characterization of a forecast, not a settled outcome. The release concerns Southern California; it does not establish current great-white activity in Monterey Bay or a Bay Area forecast. Its Ichthyology Curator, Dr. Bill Ludt, said vagrant species “give us a glimpse into what may happen under different future ocean warming scenarios,” while emphasizing that species do not all respond in the same way. That comment is about the museum’s Southern California context, not the 2015 great whites.
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A separate laboratory field update dated August 31, 2026 reported catching one leopard shark during its July–August sampling across an expanded Lower South Bay area. The update also noted relatively high halibut totals and described halibut as an “El Nino” fish that proliferates with higher coastal sea-surface temperatures. One lab’s sampling at a specific site is not a Bay Area-wide shark population estimate.
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How to read claims about sharks and El Niño
When a headline connects a shark sighting to El Niño, check whether it identifies the species, location, date and kind of evidence behind the claim. A reported sighting, an ecological association and a demonstrated cause are different things. Here, the 2015 report documents a striking Monterey Bay gathering and attributes a possible ocean-dynamics explanation to a local researcher; the separate basking-shark study and 2026 Southern California reports do not turn that explanation into proof.
Quick Recap
- Species: the 2015 gathering involved great whites; the long-term California Current study involved basking sharks; the 2026 Lower South Bay sample involved a leopard shark.
- Place and time: Monterey Bay in 2015, Southern California in the museum’s 2026 release, and Lower South Bay in the lab’s July–August 2026 sampling are distinct records.
- Inference: co-occurrence or correlation can suggest a connection, but neither alone proves that El Niño caused a particular shark gathering.
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