Is it a sign of the a-jaw-calypse?<\/p>\n
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the New York area has seemingly been under siege from a veritable sharknado in 2026 \u2014 with a spike in sightings and close encounters of the big fish kind.<\/p>\n
This month alone, authorities have temporarily red-flagged or shuttered beaches from Long Island to The Rockaways, where an alleged \u201cswarm\u201d of suspected <\/a>bull sharks, typically found in warmer climes than ours, was spotted offshore.<\/p>\n A sand tiger shark, a snaggle-toothed species whose malevolent looks belie its relative docility. andriislonchak \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n Meanwhile, just a couple of weekends ago, a swimmer was savaged off Jones Beach<\/a> by a suspected shark \u2014\u00a0which decided to snack on the poor funseeker\u2019s foot, chomping it straight to the bone. <\/p>\n \u201cThe man who got bit said that it felt like a jaw-biting motion and that it went clean through,\u201d recalled lifeguard Kate Maio, who tended to the victim\u2019s wounds. <\/p>\n But is swimming at New York beaches like, in the words of Chief Brody from \u201cJaws,\u201d \u201cringing the dinner bell?\u201d Or could the hysteria be just a bit overblown?<\/p>\n The first few bites<\/p>\n Officials claim The Rockaways have experienced record sharktivity \u2014 with 23 shark sightings since May 23, most of them between July 1 and July 5, NBC 4 reported.<\/a><\/p>\n In photos obtained by the Post, Tatyana Koltunyuk is treated by emergency personnel after she was bitten by a shark on Rockaway Beach Monday, Aug. 7, 2023. NY Post<\/p>\n However, bona fide bites have plunged since the bloodbaths of 2022 and 2023 \u2014 when there were 13 reported fin-counters on Big Apple-adjacent shores, including five in a\u00a0particularly gory three-week stretch.<\/a><\/p>\n Hans Walters, the Curator for the Animal Department at the New York Aquarium, believes there\u2019s roughly the same number of sharks that have always been \u2014\u00a0we\u2019re just noticing them more.<\/p>\n \u201cSightings probably are [increasing],\u201d the fish expert, who\u2019s been studying the fearsome beasts for three decades and counting, told The Post. \u201cIf you look for something, as long as it exists, you\u2019re going to find it. We are looking for sharks. We\u2019re looking for them because they either terrify us or they fascinate us.\u201d<\/p>\n He also noted that improved technology, from Go-Pros to drones, makes the predators easier to spot than before.<\/p>\n A bunch of bullsh-arks<\/p>\n Bull sharks like the one below are known to visit NY waters. Subphoto \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n But while he\u2019s hesitant to say there are more sharks overall, Walters concedes that certain species might be summering a bit longer in the tri-state area than in years past \u2014\u00a0saying that these seasonal visitors might be \u201ccoming up here a little earlier and staying a little later.\u201d<\/p>\n A 2025 Stony Brook study<\/a> found that some types of sharks were lingering for up to a month longer than usual \u2014 a trend pinned on warming waters.<\/p>\n But Walters doesn\u2019t buy the briny theory that\u2019s being floated lately, that tropical-dwelling bull sharks are invading New York. He noted that the aforementioned reports of so-called \u201cswarms\u201d of these creatures, who rarely migrate up this far, were likely false. <\/p>\n \u201cThe photograph that I saw taken from a drone, there is no way that I could identify the animal as a bull shark,\u201d said the shark buff, who believes it was more likely a brown shark or similarly stocky species.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t Florida, or not yet, anyway \u2014\u00a0we don\u2019t have a murderer\u2019s row of apex predators lurking just offshore, Walters emphasized.<\/p>\n Instead, he explained, the northeast surf is typically frequented by fish eaters such as threshers and sand tigers \u2014 not exactly the human food processors they\u2019re portrayed as.<\/p>\n Shark worse than their bite?<\/p>\n Shark warning signs on Jones Beach. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n When these species do get their hooks into a human, Walters doesn\u2019t believe it\u2019s a targeted attack \u2014\u00a0nor is it mistaken identity, as is popularly supposed.<\/p>\n Rather, it\u2019s more on par with a car crash, the pro explained.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a lot more faith in the visual acuity of sharks. They\u2019re not biting a foot thinking, \u2018oh, I thought that was a fish,’\u201d said Walters, who\u2019s also a field scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society\u2019s New York Bight Program. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat I think is happening is we\u2019re getting in the way,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re swimming, we\u2019re boogie boarding and a shark is in the surf feeding on schooling fish and we blunder into one another.\u201d<\/p>\n He noted that some species, like the sand tiger, known for undulating rows of snaggly teeth, will sidle up to a school of fish \u201cvery slowly\u201d and then snap down.<\/p>\n \u201c[If] you\u2019re there at that moment for the snap \u2026 you get tagged,\u201d said Walters, surmising that if the creatures actually mistook a human for fish, the damage would assuredly be more grievous than is typical in these parts.<\/p>\n A view to a kill<\/p>\n Lifeguarding supervisor Cary Epstein operates a new shark-monitoring drone at Jones Beach State Park on July 07, 2023 in Wantagh, New York. Getty Images<\/p>\n The rise in sightings pairs with an uptick in anticipation. Officials across Queens and Long Island are increasingly relying on drones for proactive predator surveillance, prompting swift, intermittent closures of at-risk swimming zones whenever sharks are spotted close to the shore.<\/p>\n