Safe to go back in the water? Great white shark numbers surge along east coast
In the 1975 thriller, Jaws, a gigantic great white shark terrorizes -- and consumes several of -- the residents of a small US east coast resort town. In truth, however, the great white, for all its pop-culture ferocity, doesn't really have a taste for humans. Now, the sharks appear to be more numerous than ever along the east coast of...
In the 1975 thriller, Jaws, a gigantic great white shark terrorizes -- and consumes several of -- the residents of a small US east coast resort town. In truth, however, the great white, for all its pop-culture ferocity, doesn't really have a taste for humans. Now, the sharks appear to be more numerous than ever along the east coast of Canada and the US.
Gregory Skomal, a marine biologist and head of the Massachusetts Shark Research Program, tells guest host Laura Lynch the sharks' populations are up around eighty per cent, thanks to conservation efforts that banned fishing of white sharks.
They feed on seals, which have also become more plentiful thanks to conservation measures, he says.
People face a far greater risk of getting killed in their car on their way to the beach than of getting eaten by a shark. That may be why tourists have been flocking to Cape Cod this year to catch a glimpse of one of the huge predators, he adds.
And with all these sharks around, does he need a bigger boat to do his research? "I've actually moved to a smaller boat for my white shark research," Mr. Skomal jokes.