P.E.I. fishers report seeing more sharks, including great whites

P.E.I. fishing crews say they're seeing more sharks in Island waters, and researchers with Dalhousie University confirm the number of sightings in the Maritimes is increasing.

The university's Ocean Tracking Network has been receiving more reports of shark sightings from divers, and has also been capturing more of them in the field.

Fred Whoriskey, the network's executive director, said it registered over 17 blue sharks on the first day it went out to tag blue sharks this year. That's compared to four or five per day in previous years, though numbers did drop in the following days.

Whoriskey said it's unknown whether this kind of number is due to a growing population or changing ocean conditions, but he said many factors could be at play, including climate change.

"[In Nova Scotia] we have had more intrusions of things like tiger sharks that we haven't seen on an ongoing basis… and that would be something that would be definitely impacted by climate change," he said.

"Maybe not so much things like the white shark, which is one of these warm-blooded sharks and has always been able to penetrate into cold water and is now probably coming back into cold water as its populations are recovering."

Shark spotted in Cable Head West

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans receives about a dozen shark sightings reports per year through its public reporting system, which launched a couple years ago.

So far in 2022, DFO has received six — five from Nova Scotia and one from a tourist while he was in Cable Head West, P.E.I., on Aug. 9.

"He and his daughter had seen what looked like an obvious shark fin about 30 to 50 metres off the beach just going in along the surf," said DFO aquatic fisheries technician Warren Joyce. "It was most likely maybe a basking shark because there are quite a few basking sharks located off P.E.I."

On average, DFO gets three reports of shark sightings in P.E.I. every year.

Sport fishing popularity may lead to more sightings

Joyce, who has been monitoring sharks since the '90s, said he's noticed an increase in shark sightings since 2015, but that may be due to the surge in popularity of sport fishing and other activities.

Capt.Jeff McNeill from North Lake said he spotted a great white only a few weeks ago.

"We went offshore to do some deep-sea fishing and a guy goes, 'Hey, look at that porpoise,'" he said. 

"He was pulling up a string of mackerel, and there's a great white shark, probably about 16 or 18 feet following that mackerel up. It stayed under the surface for .. 20 or 30 seconds and then kind of glided along the boat and just vanished."

MacNeill said there's a lot more bass fishermen on the water than there were only a couple of years ago, which he said may be why more people are posting about the encounters on social media.

"The bass fishermen at nighttime are definitely seeing lots of great whites and lots of different activity," he said. "Five years ago, we didn't have that. So we've got 10,000 eyes as opposed to no eyes watching."

A 'success story'

Joyce advises people to be cautious if they spot a shark, staying a safe distance away while they enjoy what he says is a "pretty rare experience."

Whoriskey said sharks moving into our coasts is a "big success story" for conservation efforts in the region following a big decline in their populations likely due to overfishing and other human factors.

"It means that we're restoring the apex predators in our ecosystems here. That's got to be a good thing," he said.