The year 2023 is being labeled as the summer of the sharks. In the past two days alone, there were 11 great white sharks sighted off the coast of Cape Cod. And according to a recent study, Cape Cod is being labeled as one of sharkiest places in the United States.
The study was conducted from 2015 to 2018 and was published in the Marine Ecology Progress Series. Through the study, researchers documented approximately 800 great white sharks visiting the shores of Cape Cod. Most of the sharks spotted were juveniles or “subadults.” According to the study, sharks frequent the area to hunt seals, with their numbers being the highest during the summer months.
“Over the course of the past 10 years, white sharks have come back to Cape Cod to feed on the recovering seal population,” says Megan Winton, a research scientist and member of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. “So they’re now coming in really close to shore. There’s certainly no question that as the oceans continue to warm and as water temperatures continue to rise things will start to change. And it could be that, not so far in the distant future, white sharks are more of a long-term presence – they might start showing up here earlier and they might stay for longer.”
