Jonathan Kieran

I gotta tell ya—as a longtime coastal Californian, there has never been a time when I didn’t think they were common. I’d wager that any established resident of the state with two synapses to rub together is well-aware (and has been well-aware) that those chilly Pacific waters harbor plenty of Great White Sharks—enough of ‘em to make a person feel a preternatural twinge of anxiety before scuba diving, surfing, or spearfishing (sorry, sane Californians don’t really “just swim” for fun in the Pacific, except perhaps in isolated coves or if they’re drunk.)

It’s not as if California has failed to experience an abundance of gruesome and highly publicized Great White Shark attacks for well over a century and up to the present day, including a number of horrifying encounters in the Monterey Bay alone over the past 75 years—just Google “Lewis Boren” to make your spine tingle with sharky terror and apprehensions about The Deep.

Given all of this, and the drumbeat assertions of Shark Week TV programs over the last twenty-five years alone, I truly cannot fathom headlines like THIS ONE.

Great White Sharks. They’re out there in numbers significant enough to generate healthy fear, kids, beyond the kelp beds and even in the kelp beds. They always have been out there and it has always been common knowledge.

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