Leopard sharks easy to spot by snorkelers

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Public restrooms and showers are near the main lifeguard tower.


The park's parking lot fills up quickly on summer weekends.









Once beachgoers see them up close, they're hooked.







“I can't think of anywhere else where leopard sharks are in that great of numbers and so reliable that you could go just about any day and see them,” Nosal said.

This summer, he's surgically implanting tracking devices in two dozen of the creatures so he can learn more about their routines, including why fewer of them are seen during the winter and why female sharks far outnumber males close to the water's edge.

“The current hypothesis among local scientists is that female leopard sharks are pregnant and they are taking advantage of the warm, calm waters of La Jolla Shores to speed up gestation,” Nosal said.

Whatever the reason, the sharks sure make Scully's job interesting.

“So many San Diegans don't know . . . that the sharks are here,” she said. “It's very funny seeing people get in the water not knowing there are sharks and going, ‘There's a shark right there!’ ”

Among the most common questions that Scully fields: Will leopard sharks eat people?

“They are totally harmless,” she said, adding that a leopard shark's mouth is small and adapted to feeding off the seafloor.

One recent Saturday morning, such assurances helped to ease fears among Scully's nearly two dozen snorkeling students.

The adventure-seekers started off near the oceanfront Marine Room restaurant on the south end of the beach. They waded carefully into the shallows while shuffling their feet to scare away any stingrays that might be resting on the sand.

It was a perfect day for finding leopard sharks: Light waves caressed the beach instead of crashing onto it.

The snorkelers slowly paddled out several yards, scanning everything that moved underwater.

Someone spotted a guitarfish with its long tail. Someone else noticed a ray. Here and there, people caught glimpses of leopard sharks cruising below them and waved their arms to announce their find.

But it wasn't until Scully's students started to emerge from the ocean that they saw the spectacle — scores of the sharks circling around them.

“It was crazy. It's more like walking with the sharks than snorkeling with the sharks, because you just stood there and they surrounded you,” said Lynne Hiatt of Clairemont.

Lauren Sparks of Pacific Beach signed up for a Birch tour because she didn't know how else to find the sharks. “I kind of thought (guides) would take you to a special area that only they know about,” Sparks said.

She was delighted to learn that the shark zone is easy to access from the public beach and that her first outing made for a good story.

“I didn't want to leave until I saw some,” said Sparks, grinning with excitement. “When the waves started to come over, it felt like they were going to crash into me. . . . I have never seen anything like that.”