How Carlos Gauna's Drone Revealed California's Hidden White Sharks

What flying drones over great whites really revealed is that far more white sharks live off Southern California beaches than anyone's records showed, often within a few yards of swimmers who never know they're there. Carlos Gauna, known online as The Malibu Artist, has spent years documenting them from above. It started with a shot he missed: sitting atop Point Dume at sunset without his camera or phone, he watched a large white shark chase a sea lion right below him. He had been flying his drone over gray whales, and from that night on he went looking for sharks. Today the photographer and FAA-certified drone pilot films white sharks nearly every month of the year, has published peer-reviewed research on their behavior, and funds most of his fieldwork through his YouTube channel.

Andrew and Dave follow the whole path with him: storm chasing in Oklahoma with his university's first digital camera, 16 years in corporate insurance while shooting weddings on the side, and a first drone bought in 2016 by someone who admits he couldn't stand drones at first. Carlos explains how he scouted beaches by tallying decades of reported encounters in Ralph Collier's Shark Research Committee records, then used empty COVID-era beaches to search alone. That's where his first viral clip came from: four white sharks consuming a common dolphin in 18 minutes. He also describes how outreach to Dr. Chris Lowe's Shark Lab and to Dr. Alison Towner turned an artist's curiosity into careful science communication. Dave adds what he saw from helicopters over Monterey Bay and South Africa decades ago, and the three of them work through a hard question: are there more white sharks now, or are we just finally able to see them?

The conversation also gets into water temperature as the most reliable predictor of where sharks show up, reading a shark's mood from the angle of its pectoral fins, filming natural behavior with no chum in the water, and the viral video of a swimmer who waved off a lifeguard while white sharks circled him. Carlos compares Southern California's approach to shark sightings with Cape Cod's, shares his simple rule for beachgoers when his drone flies close, and closes with advice for young creators: find a story, and make the content you want to watch.

Takeaways:

Carlos Gauna switched from filming whales to filming white sharks after seeing a sea lion chased at Point Dume, a moment he couldn't record. He found his first shark hotspots by tallying reported encounters