Great white sharks head north, following seals and alarming beachgoers

Rick Clough spent some four decades fishing for lobsters and sea urchins off the Maine coast before spotting one of the ocean's most recognized predators—a great white shark. The approximately 8-foot (2.4-meter) shark, seen off the beach town of Scarborough in July, surprised Clough, but didn't make him fear the ocean—though he admitted, "I'm not sure I'd want to go urchin diving now." Boaters, beachgoers and fishermen like Clough who spend time in the chilly waters of New England and Atlantic Canada are learning to live with great white sharks, the creatures made famous by the 1975 film Jaws. Sightings of the apex predators are up in places like Maine, where they were once very rarely spotted. 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. The sharks can grow close to 20 feet (6 meters) long, though most don't get that big. Why are great whites going north? Sightings of great whites off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, have become increasingly frequent in recent years, and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy has documented hundreds of the animals over more than a decade. But new data shows the sharks are heading even farther north into New Hampshire, Maine and beyond, said Greg Skomal, a senior fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Department of Marine Fisheries and a veteran white shark researcher. Skomal said the average residency in these northern waters has also increased from 48 days to 70 days, suggesting that white sharks appear to be increasingly comfortable farther north. A key reason for the shift seems to be the successful conservation of seals off New England and Canada via laws such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which has allowed seals to thrive and provide a food source for the predatory sharks, Skomal said. Great white sharks also benefit from protections, including a ban on fishing for them in U.S. federal waters that has stood since 1997. They are still considered vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. This article was provided by The Associated Press.