Shark sightings off Maine coast rise due to climate change and increased awareness

SCARBOROUGH, Maine (WGME) — The state says there’s more than one reason behind the recent shark sightings off Maine’s coast, and climate change is one of them.

On Monday, drone video captured a shark, believed to be a great white that was 10 to 12 feet long, near Richmond Island, Higgins Beach, and Scarborough Beach.

It was spotted again near Pine Point Beach on Tuesday.

Matt Davis, a scientist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, says shark sightings are becoming more common because people are more on the lookout and warming waters in Maine are something sharks are “warming up to.”

“As climate change occurs and we start seeing that warm water move northward towards toward the poles, the water is going to warm and we’re going to see that band of thermal temperature water preference move northward too. And so, when it comes to white shark distribution, they’re not really being seen in places they haven’t been seen before, but what might happen is as oceans warm, you might see sharks hang around a little bit longer into the winter or fall,” Davis said.

He also says regulations were put in place in the 1990s against hunting these types of sharks and we’re seeing the population growing now as a result.

According to ‘Ocearch’ an organization that tags sharks and tracks them, a handful of sharks have recently been spotted all the way up north off the coast of Novia Scotia.

“I just feel that we have global warming and climate change is huge. I think they are confused, the waters are just so warm and we are the furthest north in this country so what the heck are they doing here,” Susan Dobrovolny, a Scarborough resident, said.

Davis says shark sightings tend to happen a lot in a place like Cape Cod because the seal population is concentrated in one area.

Here in Maine, the coastline is so varied that seals aren’t all in one place so sharks aren’t either which is a reason why the sightings over the years have happened along different portions of Maine’s coast.

“It seems that the activity here in Maine is a little bit more spread out over space, so you don’t see that really concentrated population that they see in Cape Cod,” Matt Davis, a shark expert with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said.

Scarborough officials are urging beachgoers to stay informed, especially as more people seek relief from the heat in the ocean.

Maine’s first and only deadly shark attack occurred near Harpswell in July 2020.