Surfer’s drone shark videos keep going viral. See the latest from Pismo Beach
After surfing for 35 years, David Steiner knows he’s sharing the ocean with sharks — and he wants to catch them on video.
During the past week, he spent hours taking drone videos of sharks swimming past his usual surf spots.
On Sunday, he spotted a great white shark swimming slowly through the deep, gliding within 30 feet of his friends who were surfing in Pismo Beach. But eventually, the shark turned away — as they so often do.
“They head straight toward people, and then they take a wide path around,” Steiner said.
Steiner’s shark videos have gone viral on his Instagram account, @caveman_476, and he can see why.
“I think it gets us at that DNA level,” the Arroyo Grande resident said. “There’s something you can’t see, but you know they’re there.”
Despite catching so many sharks on video, Steiner isn’t afraid when he goes surfing. In fact, seeing on camera the way sharks avoid surfers has eased his mind, he said.
Still, he’s not taking any unnecessary risks.
“I do come in now when I think I saw something out of the corner of my eye,” he said with a chuckle. “I won’t tempt fate. I see a drone looking suspicious, like it’s filming a shark, I’m coming in.”
Great white sharks patrol SLO County beaches
Since September, Steiner frequently flew his drone over the Pacific Ocean without spotting a single shark.
Then, on Sunday, he finally found what he was looking for — a white shark swimming near Grand Avenue at Pismo Beach.
The 7-to-8-foot long shark swam in the water near his friend, Matt, who was foiling in the waves at 9:20 a.m. Luckily, the shark wasn’t close enough to Matt to concern Steiner, so he followed the sea creature with his drone, capturing video until his battery ran low.
After changing the batteries, Steiner flew the drone back out over the water, and he saw the shark swimming straight toward a group of his friends who were surfing.
“It’s the same every time,” he said. “When I follow a shark and see him turn and make a straight line at surfers, it just gives me the chills.”
Steiner flew the drone around his friends’ heads as a warning — but they didn’t swim to shore.
“There’s been, like, six months of shark silence,” Steiner said, so his friends couldn’t believe that a shark was in the water with them. They figured he was filming a dolphin or a seal, he said.
“I just knew I was gonna talk some smack to ‘em when they got to the beach,” he said.
The shark swam within 30 feet of his friends. But luckily, the shark eventually swam away, and Steiner’s friends came to shore without incident.
Then, on Monday, he saw an 8-foot-long shark swimming in a 30-to-40-foot circle near Pier Avenue at 8:51 a.m.
“It was perfect conditions,” he said. “The weather and everything — no waves. Really, it was just crystal clear water.”
The shark seemed relaxed, he said.
“It had nothing to do, it was just, like, running the clock down,” he said.
He brought the drone in to switch the batteries, and when he flew it back out over the water, he spotted three surfers, but no shark.
Finally, he saw a 6-to-8-foot shark in the same spot on Wednesday, swimming in a circle, he said.
He posted the videos to his Instagram account @caveman_476, which has 10,200 followers. As of Thursday, the most recent video posted on April 21 had amassed more than 164,000 likes and been shared nearly 88,000 times.
Steiner is no stranger to having popular shark footage.
His account had previously gone viral last April when he posted videos of white sharks swimming in Pismo Beach.
Two years in a row the sharks showed up on camera in April, and Steiner wonders if there’s a pattern.
What’s up with the sharks?
Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab director Dr. Chris Lowe said these sharks are likely 2 to 3-years-old because of their size.
Juveniles, like the ones Steiner spotted with his drone, are highly mobile, Lowe said.
“They’re constantly moving around and looking for food and the right temperatures,” he said.
Normally, white sharks prefer to overwinter in Baja California where the water is warmer, but as ocean temperatures increase, sharks spend more time on the Central Coast than they used to, Lowe said.
“The Central California Coast is starting to get busier,” he said. “We have lots of adults that show up there late summer through the fall. They’re there mainly to feed on elephant seals.”
Scientists have also seen an increase in shark activity on the Central Coast during the winter. Prior to 2015, the shark lab had only observed white sharks overwintering in Baja California. But after 2015, some white sharks stayed in southern and central California for the winter, he said.
Meanwhile, the white shark population has grown over the last 20 years, after the State of California prohibited commercial fishing of white sharks in 1994, Lowe said.
Lowe said he can’t say if there’s a reason that Steiner is catching sharks on camera in April. It could be because there are more sharks in the water, but it could also be because the visibility is better for the camera.
“Drones are a great tool. We use them all the time,” Lowe said. “The problem is, if the visibility is bad, the sharks — you can only see them when they’re at the surface.”
People can be certain of one thing: Sharks are in the water.
“You should assume they’re always there,” Lowe said. “It’s their home, it’s their habitat.”
