Hundreds of dead leopard sharks, as well as a few other species, have washed ashore between Redwood City and San Francisco in the past month.
Biologists suspect that the sharks are being exposed to high levels of toxins when they enter shallow water and lagoons to birth their pups. The loss marks the worst die-off in at least six years.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Pelagic Shark Research Foundation director SeanVan Sommeran told SFGate.com. “We’re only seeing a fraction of the actual losses.”