Latest news with #GreatWhiteSharks
New York Post
14-05-2025
- Science
- New York Post
First Great White Shark of season spotted gliding through clear Montauk waters: video
Here's quite a fish tale. A majestic Great White Shark was seen swimming along the shores of Montauk this week — a sighting that marks the beginning of the summer season. The viral drone footage showed the massive beast gliding close to the shores of Long Island's most eastern point around 8:30 a.m. on Monday, with nothing but clear green water surrounding it. The shark was seen swimming a few hundred feet off the coast of Montauk. Joanna L Steidle via Storyful The 'beauty' was seen just a few hundred feet from the coast and was moving at a leisurely 3.5 mph — just a fraction of its 35 mph capacity, according to the videographer. 'For me this was super exciting, as I have been flying these waters for 8 years and this is the earliest shark spotting I have had in a season and it is also the closest to shore I have spotted a great white,' Joanna L. Steidle wrote on X. The video quickly caught the attention of thousands — who were amazed at the incredible footage, and some who were concerned that the shark might have been swimming in popular wading waters earlier in the spring season than typical. But according to experts, the sighting is nothing short of 'absolutely normal.' The shark is likely an 8-foot-long juvenile. Joanna L Steidle via Storyful 'It is very, very expected this time of the year that the white sharks are moving through the Long Island waters,' Greg Metzger, the chief field coordinator of the South Fork Natural History Museum & Nature Center's Shark research program, told The Post. 'Nothing unusual, nothing strange. All just part of what they do every year for as long as we know they've been here.' The shark didn't appear to be hunting in the video, but the Montauk coast is a popular feeding ground for Great White Sharks, he explained. It's tough to tell from the short clip, but Metzger estimated that the shark was a juvenile and 8 feet in length. There are sharks in Long Island waters year-round, but spring is typically when marine life, including Great White populations, sees a boom. There has been an increase in sightings in recent years for a number of reasons, according to Metzger — one of which is the drone Steidle used to capture the incredible footage. 'That shark might've been swimming through Long Island waters for the last 15 years, but it just wasn't seen by a drone. We have more and more drone pilots out there, there's more people with cell phones. As soon as those pictures are taken, they're put on the internet and so there's a kind of a sense that there's a lot more sharks, but I think it's just because we have technology now that makes seeing and accessing sightings more,' explained Metzger. There has also been a surge in shark food populations, particularly the Atlantic menhaden, thanks to conservation efforts made in the last decade. Those fish tend to swim closer to shore, meaning more sharks are moving in for their meals. Plus, global warming has kicked Long Island summers off sooner and lasts longer, which has resulted in sharks spending more time in New York waters. Despite the increase, the risk of a shark encounter remains low 'This is very common. There's not anything to be alarmed of or about. It's just this time of the year,' he said.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Great White sharks tracked off the OBX coast
OUTER BANKS, N.C. (WAVY)- Two tagged Great White Sharks are swimming off the coast of the Outer Banks. According to the group Ocearch, a 9.5-foot long, 460 pound shark named Danny was last pinged on March 25 off the coast of Ocracoke. Danny was tagged off the coast near the Florida/Georgia line on January 17, 2025. The tag will enable OCEARCH researchers to collect real-time data for about five years. Great white shark tracked by OCEARCH pings off Outer Banks On March 21, A 13-foot, 1,700 pound shark named Mahone was pinged swimming off Oregon Inlet. Mahone is the largest male shark tagged by OCEARCH in Canadian waters. He was tagged during a 2020 OCEARCH Expedition in Nova Scotia. He is named after Mahone Bay. Ocearch is a non-profit group that tags and tracks sharks and other marine life. Biologists work to study their mating, eating and migration paths. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Chinese Rover Reveals Mars Used To Have Some Beautiful Beaches
Crowds driving you nuts? Don't have a wave pool nearby? Perhaps an interplanetary surf trip is the call? A Chinese rover on Mars has discovered what appears to be sandy beaches on the Red Planet. Based on evidence beamed back to Earth from the Zhurong rover, scientists speculate that there were once sandy beaches along the shoreline of an extinct ocean called Deuteronilus. But don't pack your board bag and spacesuit just yet. You're going to have to go back in time approximately 3.5 to 4 billion years. It's believed that in the very distant past Mars had a more hospitable atmosphere with warmer temperatures that allowed for liquid water on the surface. Scientists point to this a a recipe for life. Surfers point to it as a recipe for surf. Heck, there could have even been Martian locals, swaying palm trees and some alien version of Great White Sharks, who knows?! The rover, which roamed northern Mars from 2021 to 2022, used ground-penetrating radar imaging technology to take a peak under the surface of the planet, and what it found looks a lot like beaches similar to those found on Earth. It's believed that billions of years ago rivers fed into the Martian sea, creating the same kind of coastal geography and topography found here - sand dunes, slopes leading to a shoreline, etc. It's believe there was also likely some form of wave action thanks to tides and winds. "The Martian surface has changed dramatically over 3.5 billion years, but by using ground-penetrating radar we found direct evidence of coastal deposits that weren't visible from the surface," Hai Liu, a planetary scientist at Guangzhou University and member of the Chinese team that worked on the mission, said in a news report. "The beaches would have been formed by similar processes to those on Earth - waves and tides," Liu adds. Could an interstellar real estate arms race between China and the U.S. be that far off? China continues to not only explore the deepest reaches of our solar system, but has also been applying a government-funded, full-court press to break into surfing. They sent their first athlete to the Olympics in Tahiti last summer, and they've been entertaining a takeover of wave-rich Taiwan for a minute now. But the President of the United States has prioritized landing humans on Mars before his term is up in 2028. Along with his other cosmic ideas, he sees it as imperative that the U.S. 'pursue our manifest destiny into the stars." All of this begs the question, if a wave breaks on Mars and nobody's there to ride it, did it ever even break at all?
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Why Are Dead Great White Sharks Washing Up On North American Beaches?
Scientists are stumped by a recent uptick in the number of dead Great White Sharks washing up on beaches in North America. For more than three decades the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperator has kept tabs on the apex predator and never reported a deceased sharks washing ashore, but according to recent reporting from the New York Times, since 2023 five Great Whites have washed up along the eastern Canadian coast. Another four dead Great Whites have shown up on U.S. beaches, bringing the total to nine dead sharks. What's unsettling about the shark corpses is that scientists can't seem to figure out what's causing the deaths. The sharks don't show any outward signs of injuries or trauma, ruling out the animals being either savaged by orcas (which has been recorded in South Africa and Australia), and they don't appear to be the result of being hit by a vessel. Most sharks have been found with full stomaches, eliminating the theory that they may have starved to death. But scientists have noticed unusual swelling in the brains of the sharks 'Three of these five seem to have the same potentially infectious disease affecting their brain,' Megan Jones, a Canadian veterinary pathologist, told the NYT. Scientists believe the deaths may be a result of meningoencephalitis, which is a condition where brain tissue swells. The working hypothesis is that the sharks' brains are inflamed, pressing against their skulls, which causes pressure that eventually leads to their ultimate demise. How they're contracting this ailment remains a mystery. 'I feel very strongly that there's something significant going on,' Alisa Newton, chief veterinarian for the shark research group OCEARCH, share with the NYT. The the ocean warming and currents changing, figuring out what's causing the shark deaths may provide insight into the state of the sea and how even the mightiest of predators is being impacted.
