journalist<\/a> who studied recent jumps in shark attacks.<\/p>\nFred Pawle says he\u2019s convinced that government protections of the great whites have done as designed \u2013 increased the shark populations.<\/p>\n
Pawle applied his thesis to understand the Australian experience with animal protections but it\u2019s also germane to the Gulf of Maine. <\/p>\n
Shark protection in the gulf began with federal regulations, including the 1997 prohibition on harvesting white sharks in Atlantic federal waters, leading to a population recovery. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, marine biologists claim that rising water temperatures and booming seal populations, protected by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, have brought more great whites to the gulf.<\/p>\n
As of last summer, there were 15 confirmed sightings of white sharks in 2025 off Maine\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n
Five years ago, Julie Dimperio Holowach, 63, of New York City, died after getting bitten by a great white off Bailey Island in Maine\u2019s first-ever documented deadly shark attack.<\/p>\n
The shark bit Holowach while she was swimming with her daughter, who was unhurt.In the years since marine officials have cited a growing incidence of shark sightings along the New England coast.<\/p>\n
Pawle argues that marine researchers intentionally downplay the increase in sharks because if they admit that their protection efforts have worked they\u2019ll lose their funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lucrative grants financing their research into shark biology and behavior would dry up overnight,\u201d he writes in an article titled \u201cShark attack truth: Why experts won\u2019t admit population boom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shark protectionists, he says, like to claim that the reason people are more aware of sharks these days is because they all have smartphones and are taking pictures of sharks rather than admitting it\u2019s actually due to an increase in the shark population.<\/p>\n
Since the government began protecting sharks in the 1990s, \u201ca small clique of experts have been enjoying secure careers ever since,\u201d Pawle says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other group that dismisses the increasing prevalence of sharks and attacks at our beaches does so not out of self-interest but out of something far darker,\u201d he writes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis group of people is huge, especially in prosperous, liberal societies. You can identify them by their main defining characteristic: an instinctive hatred of their fellow humans \u2013 drilled into them by our sick education system.<\/p>\n
He says elementary-school kids are now taught that \u201cthere is no form of human activity that doesn\u2019t somehow destroy the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time they reach their early teens, this indoctrination combines with the natural idealism of early adulthood to program them for life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before long, he says, \u201cthey are blithely finding ways to rationalize the gruesome death of a fellow human in the jaws of a stupid, unpredictable shark.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018It\u2019s their home, the victim knew the risks,\u2019 they say ad nauseam and en masse after every attack. Siding with nature is instinctive to them, even at the cost of human lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shark protectionists \u201cpretend they care by proposing more research and offer to throw more and more money at fake mitigation strategies, but it\u2019s really their own careers they are concerned about,\u201d according to Pawle.<\/p>\n
The size and abundance of sharks is out of control, he insists.<\/p>\n
But the protectionists won\u2019t admit it because \u201cto do so would be to admit they are wrong,\u201d he argues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An increase in shark attacks should be blamed on the great whites, not on humans ignoring the warnings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-442903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442903","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=442903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}