What’s to blame for nearly 400 stingray victims along Huntington beaches in one week? It could be La Nina and climate change (2024)

Sharks are sooo last year — it looks like stingrays will be the sea creature causing fear to start 2018.

Lifeguards and marine researchers are searching for answers as to why a record number of victims have hobbled away from the beach punctured, bloodied and in excruciating pain — with an estimated 392 injuries along Huntington beaches in the span of about a week — after an “infestation” of stingrays has descended into the shallow waters.

The influx can be attributed to a combination of factors, experts say: extreme low tides and stingrays hanging around shallow waters, along with an increased number of them born out of the nearby Bolsa Chica tidal inlet and scouring the shoreline for food.

But then there’s the La Niña weather pattern helping to cause the stingray storm, experts say.

RELATED: Beach tip: Don’t pee on stingray wounds

While La Niña usually produces colder water temperatures, there has been little wind this winter to cause up-welling to bring colder, deeper water to the ocean surface. That has kept water temperatures at an unseasonably warm low-60s, creating a warm and toasty place for the rays to stay.

With La Niña comes fewer swells to churn up the ocean, meaning stingrays are hanging around mellow shorelines without pounding waves to drive them farther out, said Cal State University Long Beach Shark Lab director Chris Lowe.

Also, a dry La Niña season means warmer-than-normal temperatures and more beachgoers dipping into the ocean to cool off, especially during the holidays. More people in the water means more potential victims.

Lowe said historically, stingray numbers decrease in the fall, because that’s when kids go back to school and vacationers return home. Usually during winter, with less daylight, shallow water heats up less and that temperature change drives rays offshore into deeper waters, taking them out of the “red zone” where people and surfers hang out.

“We haven’t had a lot of winter storms,” he said. ‘I think the water stayed warm and they didn’t get the memo that it’s winter.”

Lowe will be sending students out to the field in the coming days to see if they can get some answers from receivers that collect data offshore, specifically in the Huntington Beach area, to see if sea temperature readings can offer some clues.

One possibility is that the rays are breeding in the Bolsa Chica tidal inlet, which opened more than a decade ago and has become a cozy spot for them to make babies.

“(Stingrays) serve an important role in keeping our beaches healthy, but they can overeat and move to other spots,” Lowe said. “That could be why they are going to Huntington Beach, because they’ve cleaned out other places.”

But nearby Seal Beach, which earned the nickname “Ray Bay” for its reputation for being a stingray haven for decades, hasn’t seen a drop in its numbers, said lifeguard chief Joe Bailey.

That stretch of beach, mostly near the San Gabriel River mouth, is home to an estimated 30,000 stingrays, Bailey said. Each year for at least the past decade, about 500 stingray victims have sought treatment after getting hit by a stinger.

“I know they have been getting more down (in Huntington). We thought it would mean we would get less, but that hasn’t been the case the past couple years,” Bailey said.

But because Seal Beach drew smaller crowds over the holidays, when compared to other beaches, the statistics aren’t as jarring: There were only eight victims reported over the holiday week.

Newport Beach lifeguard Capt. Gary Conwell said a few weeks ago that his city had 150 victims in one weekend.

“It seemed like this whole month we had a ton of stingrays,” he said.

But recent weeks have been quieter.

“Maybe they all swam up to Huntington,” he said.

At Huntington city beach there were 183 victims from Dec. 28 to 31. The worst day was Dec. 29 with 73 in one day, a record high for the city beach.In addition, in the Huntington area, there were 163 victims over a week’s time at Bolsa Chica State Beach, and 46 at Huntington State Beach — and that’s just the ones lifeguards know about.

The annual Surf City Splash drew hundreds of people into the water on New Year’s Day, and organizers increased efforts to minimize stingray injuries — such as having a water-safety team shuffle the water with paddles to scare off the creatures.

After the plungers took to the water, five people started their new year with stingers and had to soak their feet in hot water baths.

“With 400 people running in the water, you’re going to have someone get hit,” Marine Safety Lt. Claude Panis said. “Just the numbers, it’s going to happen.”

Panis wanted to see just how many stingrays lurked beneath, so Saturday he put on a mask and swim fins and stuck a GoPro on a stick to get a glimpse near the pier. The resulting video showed stingrays scurrying about in the sandy shallows.

“You almost can’t see them in the sand, they are buried so well,” he said. “As soon as I got near, they were popping up all over the place.”

Even Panis, a 40-year lifeguard, was shocked at what the video revealed.

“It surprised me,” he said. “I stayed off the bottom, I was real careful. I didn’t want to become another statistic.”

Panis said he worries about the long-term affects of the influx of stingrays. It could mean more funding will be required to pay for an increase in needed supplies and staffing.

“It’s definitely going to affect our budgets,” he said.

And what does it mean for lifeguards who are on a rescue mission to save someone’s life, but get injured en route?

“We don’t have the stingrays during our busy season yet — I will be curious to see,” he said. “In the good ol’ days, they weren’t around.”

State Parks SuperintendentKevin Pearsall said the last few years, especially at Bolsa Chica, have been especially bad, with an estimated 1,500 injuries annually.

“I’m not a shark guy, but the rumor are the sharks aren’t around anymore, and all of a sudden the stingrays are back up,” he said. “Every winter, we seem to get it, big time. To me, this is just normal for us in the past three to five years.”

Lowe said another factor coming into play could be climate change. Experts expect this sort of change in animal behaviors, he said.

It used to be that beachgoers would only have to worry about the stingrays in summer and fall months.

“As ocean temperatures change, people may need to do that year around,” he said.