The Truth About Great White Sharks in Nova Scotia | Environment | Halifax, Nova Scotia
OOn August 30, 1891, a 21-year-old sailor named John Roult fell overboard and was “right away” by a shark. The predator had followed the French fishing schooner Societe off Halifax. Both Roult and the shark were never seen again. At least that’s the story that appeared on August 31, 1891 edition of the Washington Post. Roult’s death is the earliest confirmed shark attack in Nova Scotia.
On the evening of August 13, 2021, 21-year-old Taylor Boudreau-Deveaux was swimming from a boat near Margaree Island in western Cape Breton when she had been bitten by what is believed to be a great white shark. She was airlifted to the hospital, underwent surgery and received many stitches, but is now doing well. This is the latest apparent shark attack in our province.
If you have FrONt of headlines, it would be easy to believe that the number of great white sharks around Nova Scotia has exploded in recent years. owing to OCEARCH’s shark tracking app, anyone can check our local sharks in real time. Just this month, a great white shark named Tancook has been in Mahone Bay and another named Keji is swimming in Musquodoboit Harbor.
So how many shark attacks occurred in Nova Scotia in the 130 years between the death of John Roult and the bite of Taylor Boudreau-Deveaux? Zero.
R. Snow
Great white shark named Unama’ki captured for Nova Scotia tagging by an OCEARCH boat in 2019.
Jaws. Deep blue sea. Sharknado. A triangular fin appearing between the waves. It’s clear why the great white shark has captured our imagination. It is a powerful, majestic and gigantic ocean predator that inspires awe and fascination. The great white shark’s reputation has taken a turn in recent decades, from the monster of our horror movies to the misunderstood animal of our nature documentaries. This week, the Discovery Channel has dedicated seven consecutive days of content about carcharias Carcharodon, the annual tradition known as Shark Week.
But the increased presence in the media does not translate into an increased presence of sharks in the water – at least not in Canada. “If you were a kid in Nova Scotia 50 years ago, the risk is probably similar now,” says Heather Bowlby, lead researcher at the Canadian Atlantic Shark Research Laboratory at the Institute of Oceanography in Bedford, in an interview with The Coast.
Sure, shark attacks are rare, but are there more great white sharks coming here? Nova Scotia has increasing water temperatures and a increase in gray seal populationwhich is why, how this 2020 study hypothesizes, the province is becoming increasingly attractive to these sharp-toothed predators. But a more recent one surveypublished last month by Bowlby and a group of leading shark experts in Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, may dispel the myth that our province is becoming a white shark hotspot. “I find that there is no real evidence of large-scale increases in abundance, or even large changes in presence in Canadian waters,” Bowlby says.
Her team analyzed 10 years of data from tagged sharks to find out what percentage of them were swimming to Canada. Although more and more sharks are being tagged each year, the percentage of them walking here has remained steady and low. In any given year, Bowlby says about 20 percent of white sharks tagged in the North Atlantic are detected in Canada — the peak was 23 sharks in 2019.
“Great white sharks are on people’s minds, absolutely,” says Bowlby. “They’re being talked about in the media and now that we can track them through some popular online apps, or hearing about the monitoring efforts that are going on, it gives the impression that there are a lot of them out there. But the data we have does not support this impression.”
Of course, not all white sharks have been tagged, and there is not yet an estimate of the total population abundance of sharks in the North Atlantic. If it’s similar to other areas or other oceans, Bowlby says the population could be between 2,000 and 5,000 sharks — and again about 20 percent of those will visit Canada periodically.
Factors can change that cause more sharks to come to local waters. The population could increase in the future, for example, although Bowlby explains that growth would be very slow, as white sharks don’t have many pups in their lifetime. Or the distribution of white sharks in the Atlantic could change, which would occur because of changing characteristics such as ocean temperature and available prey. That’s why the main goal of Bowlby’s research is to understand the white shark’s “critical habitat”—the habitat needed to support an animal’s full lifespan.
White shark population is experiencing a relapse on the east coast of the United States, but we’re not seeing the same growth here. The reason for this is simple: our waters are too cold, says Bowlby.
By looking at the behavior of white sharks while they are here, typically from early July to early November, Bowlby’s study suggests they are using Canadian habitats to feed because tagged sharks were seen swimming near shore and on top of the water. . And Nova Scotia has the two largest colonies of gray seals in the North Atlantic, which are a favorite food for adult white sharks. But Bowlby’s team found something surprising: the white sharks tracked in Canadian waters are mostly juveniles — and they’re too small to eat gray seals. They eat mostly fish. “We would expect to see adults – and that doesn’t seem to be the case,” says Bowlby.
Great white sharks are four to five meters long at east and grow very slowly. Adult male white sharks average 11-13 feet long, and adult females average 15-16 feet long. Our friends Tancook and Keji are both juvenile males: measuring 9.75 feet tall and 9.58 feet tall respectively.
“Something your size couldn’t eat a 600-pound full-grown male gray seal,” Bowlby says, “it would have a really hard time doing that.” Well, I’m not nine foot tall, but to be fair we had a phone interview.
N. Kielburger
A piece of public art in Lunenburg, NS. “Great white sharks are on people’s minds, absolutely,” says Heather Bowlby.
Sthe pinnacle of seals, is it is often said that a hungry white shark will mistake humans for seals, and that is what causes shark attacks. Bowlby is not convinced. “It seems impossible to me,” she says, “that an animal that has been around for so many thousands of years is not able to identify its prey with a very high level of accuracy.” However, sharks are very curious animals, Bowlby explains. They are known to bite things that float in the water, such as boats and docks.
“When you think about it, if we’re investigating something, what do you do? You get it, don’t you? Like you put it in your hands, move it, manipulate it. The only way a shark can do this is with their mouth. And so, there may be cases of mistaken identity, I don’t mean to imply that there aren’t. But there are also times when white sharks don’t know what something is in the water until they bite it.”
Of course, whether a shark is hungry for meat or just probing makes little difference to the human at the bottom. An exploratory bite from a juvenile great white shark can be fatal. To avoid that rare shark bite, don’t swim at dawn or dusk, near prey or in rough waters.
“There’s no question that some discretion is required,” says Bowlby. “Am I going to go sit on a whale carcass I found floating around? Certainly not.” She hopes her work will quell the fear surrounding sharks. She’s heard anecdotal reports of people no longer wanting to swim in our oceans, or checking a shark tracker before diving.
“I am an avid user of the ocean. I swim and surf, kite and dive, my kids do, and so does my family. And I think we should enjoy the beautiful ocean we have here in Nova Scotia.”