Filmmaker captures images of newborn great white shark off Santa Barbara shore

A wildlife photographer and filmmaker captured what could be the first-ever images of a newborn great white shark.

Great whites are the largest predatory sharks in the world with the most fatal attacks on humans and are tough to imagine as newborn babies until wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna shared some interesting shots from his drone camera.

Gauna and UC Riverside biology doctoral student Phillip Sternes were out scanning the water off Santa Barbara last year and taking some pictures when he spotted a shark pup, a 5-foot-long shark that was pure white.

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“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and realized the white layer was being shed from the body as it was swimming,” Sternes said. “I believe it was a newborn white shark shedding its embryonic layer.”

The footage may have helped solve a longstanding mystery in shark science, according to a paper in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes. The birthing habits of great whites have long been an enigma for scientists.

“Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science. No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, nor has anyone seen a newborn baby shark alive,” Gauna said.

The paper's authors acknowledge it is possible the white film the shark shed could have been a skin condition, but Gauna and Sternes do not believe this to be the case.

“If that is what we saw, then that too is monumental because no such condition has ever been reported for these sharks,” Gauna said. 

First, great white females give birth to live pups. While in utero, the embryonic sharks might feed on unfertilized eggs for protein. The mothers offer additional nourishment to the growing shark pups with a ‘milk’ secreted in the uterus. 

“I believe what we saw was the baby shedding the intrauterine milk,” Sternes said. 

Many scholars believe great whites are born farther out at sea. That this pup was filmed so close to shore — roughly 1,000 feet from the beach — is significant because its age means it was likely born in shallow waters.

Great whites are listed as an international endangered species.

“Further research is needed to confirm these waters are indeed a great white breeding ground. But if it does, we would want lawmakers to step in and protect these waters to help white sharks keep thriving,” Sternes said.