The Southern California Bight

The Southern California Bight is an open embayment extending 450 miles along the Pacific coast from Point Conception, California to Cabo Colonet, Baja California, Mexico.  It is made up many different habitats including kelp beds, sandy coastlines, estuaries, lagoons, and deep waters. The geographic and oceanographic conditions support an abundant variety of marine biota formed into rich ecosystems with elasmobranchs near or at the apex.  Elasmobranchs live in all these habitats and include species that are well known to the public, such as the great white, species that have considerable interaction with the public, stingrays, and species that the public knows little or nothing about. 

At least forty species of elasmobranchs live within the Southern California Bight, though many of these have geographical distributions ranging from lower Baja California to Alaska.  For some large pelagic sharks the Southern California Bight may be transitory habitat during seasonal migrations, while the area may serve as permanent inshore habitat for smaller coastal sharks and rays.  

One of the most vital functions of the Southern California Bight is to serve as a nursery ground – an area crucial to the development of neonates and juveniles.