photo: g-na/ BY-NC

Everybody out of the water!

This one is for our Bay Area peoples... if you like swimming in the Bay, think twice before taking a dip in the Fall. According to a new study led by researchers at Stanford every once in a while our friends from the Farallones- Great White Sharks- stray a little from their usual stomping grounds:

Surprisingly, the researchers found, the great beasts occasionally strayed from their Northern California feeding grounds for jaunts under the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Bay, apparently in search of snacks.

Okay, so there's no real reason to panic, but the study has lots of fascinating details about the lives of our local sea lion eating nightmare factory population. For instance, did you know that the Bay Area's sharks spend half the year in Hawaii, visiting a spot researchers have dubbed the "shark cafe"? Or that the Northern California shark population has been isolated from the rest of the Great Whites long enough that they are essentially their own sub-species? That and more over in Peter Fimrite's article at the SF Gate.