22 juvenile great white sharks fled San Diego nursery during Storm Hilary, later returned

When Tropical Storm Hilary hit Southern California in August 2023, people on land were bracing for flooding, strong winds and record rainfall. Underwater, a group of young great white sharks off San Diego were reacting to the same storm in a very different way: they left their nursery habitat and moved into more sheltered waters before returning once conditions improved.A study from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach provides the first direct evidence of juvenile white sharks responding to an extreme weather event like this. Using acoustic tags to follow 22 sharks before, during and after the storm, researchers found that many temporarily abandoned the area as Hilary hit, then came back within days or weeks.A storm that changed the coastTropical Storm Hilary was a rare event for Southern California.