It’s not just you; there’ve been a lot of shark sightings reported this summer in New England. Part of that has to do with people armed with smartphones, drones, and social media. Researchers believe the number of Great Whites is on the rise.
After decades of overfishing for sport, and being caught in commercial fishing gear, the Great White is on the rebound, according to Greg Skomal, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries’ marine biologist.
“There is some evidence that the white shark population along the eastern seaboard of the United States is increasing. And it appears the population is rebounding after heavy levels of exploitation that occurred in the 80s and 90s,” Skomal said.
Skomal said the apex predators normally start appearing in New England with greater frequency at the end of July.
“And what happened this year is, it appears that the sharks actually showed up in greater numbers earlier. Meaning early July is actually when we started seeing large numbers of white sharks, and that has persisted and grown through July,” he said.
However, Skomal said early-summer heat-waves likely brought Great White Sharks to local waters earlier than they are usually spotted.
“Because a lot of their movements seem to be mitigated by water temperature so as water temperature climbs the timing with which they arrive in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Gulf of Maine will be driven by those rising temperatures,” Skomal said.
Skomal adds that researchers are still trying to nail down a good estimate of the number of Great Whites in the North Atlantic. He said he’s tagged more than 300 in the last few years.
