"You have to think like a shark, and you have to remember that the ocean is a wild place, not a swimming pool," he said. While there is need for care, there is not a great deal of need for concern about sharks, said Hueter. "The shark came by, had a look at them, disappeared out of visibility, and then 20 or 30 seconds later came back for another look and another look." Staying safe "They had several encounters with, likely, the same shark," said Harvey-Clark. There was another encounter earlier this week, this time involving a charter boat with a dozen divers in the water. "The shark came in from deep water, had a look at her, she threw up her arms, and it turned around and hightailed it out of there," he said. WATCH: How do sharks that never stop swimming rest? Scientists may have figured it out Earlier this month a solo diver saw one in St. Scarring and other markings can also aid in identification.Īnd Harvey-Clark isn't the only one spotting sharks off the South Shore. Individual sharks can be identified by unique markings on their pelvic fins. Harvey-Clark will be using the pictures he took to develop a tool for identifying individual sharks. In one three-day period we got 15 different sharks," said Harvey-Clark. " found it actually incredibly easy to image large numbers of sharks. In November he went out on an expedition off Nova Scotia's South Shore, using drones for spotting, and diving cages to capture some underwater shark pictures. "White sharks are not difficult to find at all," said Harvey-Clark, who has helped film more than 40 underwater documentaries. This picture taken off of the coast of Liverpool, N.S., in 2020 is one of the first underwater pictures taken by a diver of a great white shark in Canadian waters. "Now we're starting to bring things back."Īs top predators, sharks help control populations of mid-level predators such as seals.Ĭhris Harvey-Clark, a Halifax-based shark researcher, diver and veterinarian at Dalhousie University, has been seeing the results of conservation efforts. We destroyed our shark population and overfished other things," said Bob Hueter, chief scientist with Ocearch in Sarasota, Fla. MUST READ: 5 essentials to take to the farmers’ market with you on sunny days The shark became a protected species in the mid-1990s. In the latter decades of the 20th century, great white shark populations in the region were decimated when they were caught as by-catch, that is, accidentally captured while fishing for something else. There are more great white sharks swimming in Atlantic Canada waters in recent years, and that's good news.
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