{"id":107140,"date":"2025-08-24T18:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T18:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/107140\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T18:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T18:37:07","slug":"great-white-sharks-are-going-north-heres-what-the-numbers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/107140\/","title":{"rendered":"Great white sharks are going north. Here’s what the numbers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLocal News\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSightings of the sharks are up in places like Maine, where they were once very rarely spotted.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\tThis TV grab shows an aerial image of a great white shark off the coast of Scarborough, Maine, on Monday, August 11, 2025. (David Lancaster via AP) AP\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy PATRICK WHITTLE, Associated Press\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAugust 24, 2025 | 9:30 AM\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

2 minutes to read<\/p>\n

SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) \u2014 New data shows that great white\u00a0sharks<\/a>\u00a0are spending more time in the chilly waters off New England and Canada\u2019s Atlantic coast.<\/p>\n

That means boaters, beachgoers and fishermen who spend time in the northern waters are learning to live\u00a0with the predators<\/a>\u00a0made famous by the movie \u201cJaws\u201d 50 years ago. Sightings of the sharks are up in places like Maine, where they were once very rarely spotted.<\/p>\n

Scientists link the white shark sightings to increased availability of the seals the sharks feast on, and say beachgoers are generally very safe from shark bites.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a breakdown by the numbers.<\/p>\n

93 great white sharks identified off Maine from 2020 to 2024<\/p>\n

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been monitoring great white shark activity in the Gulf of Maine since 2020. The department has said it intends to use the data to better understand white shark distribution off the state\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n

Nineteen unique white sharks were recorded in 2024 on 47 unique dates, the department reported.<\/p>\n

2 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks in Maine waters since 1837<\/p>\n

The first recorded\u00a0fatal shark attack in Maine<\/a>\u00a0happened in 2020 when a great white shark killed 63-year-old Julie Dimperio Holowach off Bailey Island.<\/p>\n

Shark experts describe fatal shark bites as exceedingly rare, in Maine and everywhere else.<\/p>\n

Nearly 2.5-fold increase in detection of white sharks off Nova Scotia<\/p>\n

The number of white sharks detected off Halifax, Nova Scotia, increased about 2.5 times from 2018 to 2022, according to a\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0published in May in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. Even farther north, the number detected in the Cabot Strait that separates Nova Scotia and Newfoundland increased nearly four times over, the paper said.<\/p>\n

8 shark species known to live in Maine waters<\/p>\n

In addition to the great white shark, at least seven other shark species live in Maine\u2019s waters. They are the basking shark, porbeagle, blue shark, sand tiger shark, common thresher, shortfin mako and spiny dogfish.<\/p>\n

Most of these sharks pose a very minimal threat to humans and some are harmless.<\/p>\n

949 unprovoked shark attacks in recorded human history since 1580<\/p>\n

The International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History keeps a record of documented\u00a0shark<\/a>\u00a0attacks. While the great white shark holds the record for most documented attacks on humans, the totals are still very low.<\/p>\n

The white shark has been the source of 351 documented unprovoked shark attacks, and 59 of those have been fatal, the International Shark Attack File has reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local News Sightings of the sharks are up in places like Maine, where they were once very rarely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-107140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}