The Red Triangle is the

colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in convers ...

name of a roughly triangle-shaped region off the coast of

northern California Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...

, extending from

Bodega Bay Bodega Bay ( es, Bahía Bodega) is a shallow, rocky inlet of the Pacific Ocean on the coast of northern California in the United States. It is approximately across and is located approximately northwest of San Francisco and west of Santa ...

, north of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, out slightly beyond the

Farallon Islands The Farallon Islands, or Farallones (from the Spanish ''farallón'' meaning "pillar" or "sea cliff"), are a group of islands and sea stacks in the Gulf of the Farallones, off the coast of San Francisco, California, United States. The island ...

, and down to the

Big Sur Big Sur () is a rugged and mountainous section of the Central Coast of California between Carmel and San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. It is frequently praised for its dramatic scenery. Big S ...

region, south of

Monterey Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bo ...

. The area has a very large population of

marine mammals Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their r ...

, such as

elephant seals Elephant seals are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus ''Mirounga''. Both species, the northern elephant seal (''M. angustirostris'') and the southern elephant seal (''M. leonina''), were hunted to the brink of extinction for oil ...

harbor seals The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped (walruses, eared sea ...

sea otters The sea otter (''Enhydra lutris'') is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smal ...

and

sea lions Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

, which are favored prey of

great white shark The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large Lamniformes, mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major ocean ...

s. Around thirty-eight percent of recorded great white shark attacks on humans in the United States have occurred within the Red Triangle—eleven percent of the worldwide total. The area encompasses the beaches of the heavily populated

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

, and many people enjoy surfing,

windsurfing Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the aerospace and surf culture of California. Windsurfing g ...

, swimming and

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), ...

in these waters.

Geography

The Red Triangle is defined by its vertices: the northern vertex is Bodega Bay (Bodega Head), the western vertex is the Farallones, and the southern vertex is Big Sur or

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica ...

. The movement of sharks and other large marine animals in this region were studied starting in 1999 under the Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) program, an international collaboration. TOPP found that white sharks in the Red Triangle are genetically distinct from others in the Pacific Ocean, such as those found off South Africa and Australia.

Schedule

The population of northeastern Pacific white sharks tend to congregate along the north/central California coast each fall, then leave the area in December for the deep ocean approximately halfway between California and Hawaii. This region is referred to by TOPP as the

White Shark Café The White Shark Café is a remote mid-Pacific Ocean area noted as a winter and spring habitat of otherwise coastal great white sharks. The area, halfway between Baja California and Hawaii, received its unofficial name in 2002 from researchers at ...

. Female whites tend to visit the Gulf of the Farallones every two years, which researchers believe to be based on the shark reproductive cycle. Adult Great White Sharks are no longer present in the Red Triangle during the month of May, and start to return in August. Figure One: Shark Attack History in the Red Triangle ()

References

{{reflist

External links

International Shark Attack FileMonterey Bay Aquarium White Shark Research Project

Animal attacks by geographic location Geography of California Geography of the San Francisco Bay Area Pacific Ocean Sharks Surfing locations in California Shark attacks