{"id":285196,"date":"2026-07-02T19:55:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T19:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/285196\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T19:55:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T19:55:46","slug":"rockaway-beach-reopens-after-intermittent-closures-following-multiple-shark-sightings-qns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/285196\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockaway Beach reopens after intermittent closures following multiple shark sightings \u2013 QNS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"NYC\t\t\t<\/p>\n

NYC Parks has temporarily closed Rockaway Beach after multiple bull sharks were sighted off the Queens Coastline. <\/p>\n

Photo by John Schilling<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t <\/p>\n

Rockaway Beach<\/a> reopened to the public at 3:30 p.m. after closing intermittently following multiple confirmed sightings of bull sharks off the Queens coastline.<\/p>\n

New York City\u2019s Emergency Management Department<\/a> issued a notice shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday, July 2, warning beach-goers to expect intermittent beach closures due to the sightings.<\/p>\n

A Parks Department official said the last sighting occurred via drone at around 2:30 p.m., with the beach set to reopen at 3:30 p.m. if there are no further sightings. An agency official has since confirmed that there have been no further sightings.<\/p>\n

NYC Parks generally closes a beach one mile in each direction for one hour if there has been a long shark sighting, but closes the entire beach when there have been confirmed sightings of multiple sharks on the same day.<\/p>\n

One image captured two sharks swimming together off the Queens coastline.\n<\/p>\n

The beach closures and sightings coincided with what is currently the hottest day of the year, with temperatures hitting 100 degrees in Central Park for the first time in over a decade. An extreme heat warning remains in place across all five boroughs.<\/p>\n

Earlier Thursday, the Town of Hempstead shuttered its beaches after a 9-foot-long shark was spotted from Town Point Park Lookout. The Nassau County beaches have since reopened after lifeguards monitored the shoreline, following all relevant safety protocols.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NYC Parks has temporarily closed Rockaway Beach after multiple bull sharks were sighted off the Queens Coastline. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[109332,109333,310,109334,9,24,63,22458,122,124,123,294,109335],"class_list":["post-285196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-beach-closed","tag-bull-sharks","tag-daily-newsletter","tag-department-of-emergency-management","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-parks","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-rockaway-beach","tag-shark-sightings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}