Great white shark numbers off Massachusetts rose sharply last year

great_white_shark_11A big jump in the number of great white sharks seen off Massachusetts has given rise to a couple of compelling mysteries. Greg Skomal, senior marine fisheries scientist for the state government, tags great whites along the coast. He collaborates with researchers in Halifax who tag blue sharks and other species, and collect data from Skomal’s tags when they’re in Canadian waters. Skomal is still collecting this year’s data, so he can’t comment on it yet. But from mid-June to October in 2014, his team identified 68 individual white sharks off the eastern shore of Cape Cod. In the summer of 2015, that number increased to 141 individuals. There are still many questions left to answer, such as what proportion of the total existing population is being spotted off the coastline. “Is it 10 per cent, is it five per cent, is it 50 per cent?” he said. “We could be seeing just a fraction of what’s out here.” Read the rest here 09:13

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.