Warm Atlantic waters are drawing sharks. How can shore bathers steer clear of them?
The ultra-high ocean temperatures that have helped brew all the humidity around here and set off a record number of tropical storms also appear to be luring sharks to near-shore waters in the northeastern United States. None have yet been sighted near the shore at Jersey beaches, but double the usual numbers have been reported near Long Island. Nassau County on Wednesday deployed shark-seeking helicopters.
And they likely aren’t too far from the Jersey shore. “There’s always sharks off the coast,” said Nicole Grandinetti, general curator of the Camden Adventure Aquarium. But despite the well-publicized fatal attack by a great white shark in Maine’s Casco Bay this week, shark experts say that people aren’t particularly appetizing to most of those finned predators, and that for the most part, humans have nothing to fear but shark-phobia itself.
