The good news for La Jolla beachgoers is that the warmer ocean temperatures have not resulted in a higher number of stingray reports to lifeguards this year, at least in La Jolla. The bad news: the warmer temperatures have extended stingray season, meaning more reports are likely to come.

According to data obtained through the Public Records Act, La Jolla beaches are on track to have a four-year low in stingray stings since 2023. So far in 2026, La Jolla Shores, Blacks Beach and Scripps Beach saw close to 400 stings, with three months in the year remaining.  In 2024, those same beaches had 763 reported stings.

Warm waters could extend stingray season later into the year, though, so numbers could rise. In addition, the data provided by lifeguards likely underestimates the real numbers, as many beachgoers don’t report stings.

Despite the longer season, La Jolla beaches are seeing lower sting numbers than in the past. Blacks Beach’s stings hovered around 230 in 2023 and 2024, but shot up to 278 in 2025. This year, though, swimmers reported only 150 stings. 

At La Jolla Shores, 376 beachgoers endured the pain of a sting in 2023, the highest year in the data set. That 2023 number rivals the total stings, 399, at all three La Jolla beaches so far in 2026. But since that first year of data, the number of stings at La Jolla Shores has not broken 250.

Over at Scripps, the number of stings broke 300 only in 2024. Then, stings dramatically fell to 34 in 2025. This year has a few more stings than that four-year low, but at 46 in October, it is still much lower than the 304 reported in 2024. 

So overall, La Jolla has fewer stings than past years. 

That trend is not universal in the city of San Diego. Pacific Beach, for instance, has seen year-over-year increases in stings since 2023, with 2026 stings already surpassing the record set in 2025. 

While there is no single explanation for that strong increase, Zach Merson, a Ph.D. student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said two factors are at play: more people and warmer waters.

“Generally, stingrays like the same conditions that people going to the beach really like: nice, shallow, warm water,” Merson said. “And that’s, of course, where you’re going to have the most people wading into the water.”

With a super El Niño coming, Merson said water temperatures have been unusually high, even bringing in all sorts of exotic animals to the coasts of California.

“That’s definitely contributing to more stingrays coming close to the beach than in a typical year,” he said. “This year, because the water is warmer further into the year, I just expected that peak stingray season will extend, perhaps, through the end of October into November as well.”

Merson also said stingrays tend to be most heavily concentrated at low tides, when there is a smaller area of shallow water for them to be in. 

To prevent being stung by a stingray, beachgoers should do the “stingray shuffle”: keeping both feet in contact with the sand at all times while sliding forward. This prevents someone from stepping directly on a stingray’s barb.

“When a stingray is stepped on, it thinks you’re something trying to eat it, and that’s when it will defend itself by flicking its spine into, probably, your ankle,” Merson said. “But if you’re shuffling your feet, you actually either spook the ray off before you even get to it, or you bump up against its side.”

If lifeguards are not on duty when someone is stung, people can use the emergency call boxes located along beaches in San Diego to reach a 24-hour dispatch center for help.

If stung, Lifeguard Lt. John Maher said to treat any bleeding, clean and bandage the wound, and submerge it in hot water not exceeding 110 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour and a half. 

“Don’t let the stingray scare you into staying out of the water,” Maher said.

Thaïs Giraudet and Drew Sitton contributed to this report.