By PATRICK WHITTLE
SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) — New information reveals that nice white sharks are spending extra time within the chilly waters off New England and Canada’s Atlantic coast.
Which means boaters, beachgoers and fishermen who spend time within the northern waters are studying to dwell with the predators made well-known by the film “Jaws” 50 years in the past. Sightings of the sharks are up in locations like Maine, the place they have been as soon as very not often noticed.
Scientists hyperlink the white shark sightings to elevated availability of the seals the sharks feast on, and say beachgoers are typically very protected from shark bites.
Right here’s a breakdown by the numbers.
93 nice white sharks recognized off Maine from 2020 to 2024
The Maine Division of Marine Assets has been monitoring nice white shark exercise within the Gulf of Maine since 2020. The division has mentioned it intends to make use of the information to higher perceive white shark distribution off the state’s coast.
Nineteen distinctive white sharks have been recorded in 2024 on 47 distinctive dates, the division reported.
2 confirmed unprovoked shark assaults in Maine waters since 1837
The primary recorded deadly shark assault in Maine occurred in 2020 when a terrific white shark killed 63-year-old Julie Dimperio Holowach off Bailey Island.
Shark specialists describe deadly shark bites as exceedingly uncommon, in Maine and in every single place else.
Practically 2.5-fold improve in detection of white sharks off Nova Scotia
The variety of white sharks detected off Halifax, Nova Scotia, elevated about 2.5 instances from 2018 to 2022, in line with a paper revealed in Could within the journal Marine Ecology Progress Collection. Even farther north, the quantity detected within the Cabot Strait that separates Nova Scotia and Newfoundland elevated almost 4 instances over, the paper mentioned.
8 shark species identified to dwell in Maine waters
Along with the nice white shark, at the least seven different shark species dwell in Maine’s waters. They’re the basking shark, porbeagle, blue shark, sand tiger shark, widespread thresher, shortfin mako and spiny dogfish.
Most of those sharks pose a really minimal risk to people and a few are innocent.
949 unprovoked shark assaults in recorded human historical past since 1580
The Worldwide Shark Assault File on the Florida Museum of Pure Historical past retains a file of documented shark assaults. Whereas the nice white shark holds the file for many documented assaults on people, the totals are nonetheless very low.
The white shark has been the supply of 351 documented unprovoked shark assaults, and 59 of these have been deadly, the Worldwide Shark Assault File has reported.
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