WASHINGTON, DC —
Sun lotion, insect repellant, and the Sharktivity app are this
summer’s
must-have beach accessories along the US East Coast as human-shark encounters
increase.
اضافة اعلان
Ironically, conservation wins for vulnerable species
might be behind the unfortunate uptick, say experts, while there might also be
a link to climate as the apex predators’ prey move to new waters.
Every summer, great whites move up the Atlantic
coast of the US, toward New England, their number peaking between August and
October.
“There’s a general increase in the population that
we think is the population rebounding after being protected,” Gregory Skomal, a
senior fisheries scientist for the state of Massachusetts, told AFP.
Around 300 of the animals, the world’s largest known
fish, have been tagged over the years, with roughly a hundred or so passing
through the waters around
Cape Cod every year.
The iconic movie “Jaws” was shot in this region, and
the creatures are a major tourism draw, adorning baseball caps and t-shirts. On
the flipside, however, there have already been temporary beach closures this
year after confirmed sightings close to shore.
A major part of the reason is their main prey,
seals, are also rebounding thanks to increased protections.
“If you have more sharks feeding close to land and
you have more people swimming, the chances for those kinds of negative
interactions increases,” said Skomal.
Enter the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy
Sharktivity app, which was developed with input from
Massachusetts wildlife
officials to provide information on shark sightings from researchers, safety
officials, and user reports.
Surveillance patrols
In New York state, the
governor has just announced additional surveillance patrols, including via
drones and helicopters.
On the tourist beaches of Long Island, half a dozen
shark bites have already come to light, after three years of none at all.
Here, great whites are less likely to be the
culprits than other species of shark that operate in the region, in particular
tiger sharks, sand tiger sharks, and bull sharks.
Nick Whitney, a senior scientist at the New England
Aquarium, believes the increasing encounters here might be linked to the
sharks’ bait fish — menhaden, also known as porgies or bunkers, recovering.
A woman takes photos of children in a shark-themed tour advertisement in Chatham, Massachusetts on July 15, 2022.
This might be because of cleaner waters off
New York
and New Jersey, “but it’s tricky to figure out how much of it is increasing
populations or just populations moving around as a result of changing ocean
conditions from climate change.”
But if things can thus vary greatly from one year to
another on a local level, the global level remains steady at around 75 shark
attacks recorded each year, said Gavin Naylor, director of a research program
on sharks at the
University of Florida.
This follows a brief drop to around 60 during the
two first years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Annual global deaths are around five. In the past 20
years, only two deaths have been reported north of Delaware in the US, in Cape
Cod in 2018, and in Maine in 2020.
But in the future, it is reasonable to think that
the number of victims will increase.
“We are going to get more fatalities. There’s more
white sharks, the probability is going to increase,” predicts Naylor, even
though the trend is not yet statistically significant.
Surfers, who venture farther into the water,
accounted for half of unprovoked attacks in 2021. Farther south, Florida, with
its many tourist beaches and tropical climate, is still where 60 percent of US
and 40 percent of world attacks occur.
Take precautions
Sharks are far from the bloodthirsty
beasts sometimes portrayed in movies.
Studies have shown that they can mistake surfers or
swimmers for their usual prey — notably white sharks, which have rather poor
eyesight.
“With so many people on a global scale in the water,
if sharks preferred to feed or prey upon humans, we would have tens of
thousands of attacks each year,” said Skomal.
With climate
change, the expert expects that the increase in ocean temperatures will
gradually lengthen the season during which sharks are present in the northern
United States.
So what can be done to limit the risks? People
should download the Sharktivity app to track sightings.
“Another thing we tell people is just to be aware of
your surroundings,” said Whitney. Look around for birds flying around schools
of baitfish, for example.
Do not swim alone, stick to areas with cell phone
coverage, and if bitten, the real danger is bleeding out, so it’s important to
get to shore and control the bleeding until help arrives.
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