Great white sharks are one of the most feared animals across the globe and according to the marine experts at Ocearch they could end up in UK waters in the near future.
Their investigations based on tracking showed that the creatures have started to regularly swim north as they search for food, being spotted at the Unites States’s New England coast more and more in recent years.
Before the 1970s, Cape Cod, a peninsula in Massachusetts, had virtually no great white sharks, but the area is among those that have seen a rise in the number of great whites near its shores in the past 50 years.
Experts believe that this is due to the number of seals that have migrated towards these regions. The US Government’s efforts to protect the seals have ended up helping the species thrive and seals are one of the key sources of food the great whites depend on.
The Ocearch team are hoping to visit the UK next summer and expect to locate some of the vicious predators in British waters. Talking to The Times, the research group’s founder Chris Fischer said: “We believe they should be moving up past Brest [in Brittany, France] and Cornwall”.
Marine biologist Gregory Skomal disagrees with Ocearch’s theory, sharing that there have been zero white shark spottings around Cornwall. He’s explained: “They should be there but they are not and we don’t know why.”
However, according to the University of Plymouth’s records, great whites have been spotted around the UK since 1965, with nearly 100 credible but unconfirmed sightings being noted in the last decade.
Great white sharks are most commonly found around the coastline of California, Hawaii, and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in Australia and South Africa. They are predators that are known for swimming great distances to get to food and are said to be able to smell a drop of blood in one million drops of water.
Previously, scientists have warned that climate change, which contributes to rising ocean temperatures, would force the species to migrate and end up off the UK coastline by 2050.
Recently, in April, a rare smalltooth tiger shark was discovered at a beach in Wexford, Ireland following the first shark corpse find in Hampshire in March. Experts believe the species, previously rarely seen in British waters, are making UK shores their full-time home.
