03-07-2025
Great White Sharks: How to lower (the already tiny) odds you'll get nibbled at the beach this summer
Harbouring secret fears of being chomped by a giant fanged sea beast while splashing about unathletically at the beach is very human.
Especially as the movie Jaws marks its 50th anniversary.
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But that doesn't make it rational.
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'Any time you go to the beach you have a greater chance of tripping over a sand castle and dying, choking on the food you're eating, getting struck by lightning or getting sucked out by a rip current and drowning than getting bit by a shark,' said Neil Hammerschlag, a Nova Scotia marine ecologist.
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The curious thing about the great computers wobbling atop our necks is that knowing a fear of what lurks in the deep is irrational will do little to dispel it.
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Nova Scotia is at the northern end of the great white shark's range. With the waters all around us warming and their population increasing due to protections against hunting them, more have been coming in recent years.
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Biologists expect that to continue.
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Most shark species stay out in the deep water off Nova Scotia. Great whites will often come-in closer to shore as they hunt for seals.
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So more great whites will mean more sightings.
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A video of a great white at a lobster fishing boat off Inverness circulated widely this spring. On Wednesday Queensland Beach on Saint Margarets Bay was closed for two hours after a fin sighting, though it wasn't confirmed to be a great white.
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'You remember being at the grocery store and your mom told you to look with your eyes, not your hands?' said Hammerschlag.
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'That's because humans look with their hands, they want to feel an object they're curious about. Sharks don't have hands, they look with their teeth. Their teeth are sensory structures.'
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Great white sharks have up to 300 teeth.
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In cases where they have bitten humans, it's often been to investigate rather than to eat us. In 2021, a 28-year-old woman swimming from a boat off Cape Breton's Margaree Island was bitten by a great white shark. She was airlifted to hospital and survived.
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While humans aren't on the shark's menu and so often get released after a probing bite (which still can be lethal), Hammerschlag's advice is to avoid becoming a subject of their interest.
