Some East Coast Beaches Planning to Install New Signs Alerting Visitors to Great White Sharks

There is a growing amount of evidence indicating that the number of great white sharks is increasing along Canada’s East Coast. Plans are being made to put up warning signs for beachgoers for the first time.

Fred Whoriskey, who is the director of the Ocean Tracking Network at Dalhousie University in Halifax, mentions that the population of these apex predators seems to be growing due to successful conservation efforts and a rising food supply, particularly grey seals.

“We are likely seeing more animals here, even though the exact numbers are unknown,” he stated in an interview.

“No one has a clear understanding of the northwest Atlantic white shark population… However, I’ve spoken to many lobstermen who are witnessing things they haven’t seen in decades out on the water. This suggests that the sharks are returning to areas they have been absent from.”

The North Atlantic population has been protected in Canada since 2011 and in the United States since 1994. These protections were put in place after studies revealed that the population had declined by up to 80% during the increased fishing in the 1970s and 1980s.
Now, they are experiencing a resurgence.

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In addition to more frequent sightings, there have been reports of two attacks in Nova Scotia in recent years, one resulting in injury to a swimmer and another in the death of a dog. Warning signs and flags have already been installed at beaches in Massachusetts and Maine following two fatal shark attacks, one in 2018 at Cape Cod and another in 2020 at Maine’s Casco Bay.

In Nova Scotia, the plan is to install warning signs at around a dozen public beaches as early as this summer. However, these signs…