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Katharine, a 14-foot great white shark, was captured and tagged on Aug. 19, 2013, off Cape Cod.(Photo: Robert Snow/OCEARCH)
MELBOURNE, Fla. — The horror of a great white shark attack has never happened in Florida — that we know of.
But scientists say the fear that the movie Jaws inspired 40 years ago rendered great whites and all other sharks under attack. Hollywood helped make great whites a prized target, a trophy catch sought by many. Decades of unprecedented fishing pressure thinned their ranks.
But efforts in the last couple decades to protect great whites are having an impact, and now great whites and other shark species appear to be on the mend.
That's raised new questions — and concerns — about this fearsome predator, particularly as shark sightings grow more common.
Still, George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida, said it's impossible to say with full confidence that great whites have rebounded from the post-Jaws onslaught they faced.
"It's a matter of relativity," Burgess said of the great white's status. "There are in fact more today than there were 10 years ago."
'JAWS' MAINTAINS GRIP 40 YEARS LATER
On both the east and west coasts of the United States, great whites have been in a recovery phase since the early 1990s, Burgess said. He, along with several federal scientists, published a study last year that concluded that although great whites declined significantly in the 1970s and 1980s in the Northwest Atlantic, they have increased since the early 1990s after conservation measures kicked in.
A scene from “Jaws,” one of the most influential and successful cinematic blockbusters of all time.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Gannett)
More great white dorsal fins also are being spotted off Florida shorelines, sometimes surprisingly close to shore. But the reason may be more people in the water with cameras and sharing their shots on social media than any increase in sharks, researchers said.
Some fishermen say rules preventing them from harvesting great whites and other large sharks could increase the risk of more attacks.
"I don't ever remember surfers and waders being bit like they are these days, because the commercial sharkers were thinning them down," said Ron Rincones, a longtime fisherman and diver from Grant-Valkaria. "People are now being attacked. There's a lot more people shark fishing these days on the surf, because there's a lot more sharks."
According the International Shark Attack File that Burgess maintains, great whites have been implicated in 280 unprovoked attacks on humans globally between 1876 and 2013. Of those, 77 were fatal, with a steady increase in the frequency of attacks.
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But only seven great white shark attacks were in the Eastern United States, four of them fatal, the last fatality coming in 1957. The West Coast of the U.S. had 101 attacks during the same time period, nine of them fatal, the most recent in 2012 in California.
But as with attacks from other shark species, Burgess said the increase is much more due to human — not shark — population growth, resulting in more people in the water.
"Attacks have continued to rise despite reductions in shark populations," Burgess notes, "but human population continues to soar."
PROTECTIONS KICK IN
While the great white's fame made it a target, the shark's plight also earned the species the highest levels of protection among sharks. The National Marine Fisheries Service listed great whites as prohibited species in 1997.
However, great whites still face threats from commercial fishing, "finning" — or cutting off their fins for soup — habitat degradation and trophy hunting.
Like many sharks, great whites grow slowly and can't reproduce until older than age 10. Females give birth to two to 10 pups every few years. Those traits make great whites very vulnerable to overfishing.
Zack Spurlock of Brevard County, Fla., shot this up-close video of what he estimates to be a 12-foot-long great white shark off of Port Canaveral on Saturday, May 2, 2015.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Courtesy of Zack Spurlock)
Most shark experts advocate stronger fishing limits on great whites and the other vulnerable sharks and international agreements to stop the practice of shark "finning." The Clinton administration outlawed the practice in U.S. waters, but it continues elsewhere.
Broader international agreements are needed, shark experts say, because great whites and many other sharks migrate in and out of protected waters. There is no single, international shark management organization.
Shark scientists say fishermen and consumers will suffer most if great whites and other large sharks are depleted. The ripples could be felt throughout the food chain. For example, if sharks that eat octopus are depleted, the octopus population will explode and eat more lobster, leaving less for people.
When great whites were depleted, gray seals exploded in coastal Massachusetts, and the seals depleted striped bass, cod and other fish populations.
GREAT WHITE'S RANGE
In recent years, researchers have started to learn more about great whites, chipping away at some of their mystery.
Their range extends from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and northern Caribbean Sea. But shark experts know great whites prefer the Gulf of Maine south to Cape Hatteras, N.C. They tend to hang out between Massachusetts and New Jersey during summer and off Florida during winter, spreading out along the coast during spring and fall.
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A 2011 study by California researchers using 22 years of photos of dorsal fin characteristics found that great whites return yearly to specific coastal aggregation sites over decades.
A group called OCEARCH is tracking about 20 sharks in the Atlantic and dozens more globally. Their real-time shark tracking has helped unveil the mysterious travels of great whites. For one, the sharks swim south much faster and more randomly than once thought.
These awesome hunters can explode in quick bursts of speed, estimated conservatively at 30 mph.
A great white they dubbed "Katharine" has become an Internet celebrity.
Researchers captured the then 14-foot, 2,300-pound great white shark in August 2013 off Cape Cod, fitted her dorsal fin with a satellite tracking device. She's traveled 14,158 miles since.
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A great white shark.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
How to avoid a shark attack
• Always stay with a group of people because sharks are more likely to attack an individual.
• Do not wander too far from shore where it will be harder to rescue you.
• Avoid swimming at dawn and dusk when sharks are most actively searching for food.
• Do not enter the water if you're bleeding.
• Avoid wearing shiny jewelry, which may look like fish scales to a shark.
• Avoid waters being used by sport or commercial fishermen, where sharks may congregate to go after the bait.
• Refrain from excess splashing, which attracts sharks.
• Be careful when you're in an area between sandbars or near steep drop-offs. These are favorite shark hangouts.
Source: International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural Science
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