A shocked tourist says, “I was hoping to find sea glass and driftwood, but not a shark.
A shark doesn’t wash up on the coast of Prince Edward Island every day, but scientists say that finds like the one this week are happening more and more often.
Flo Durelle came to the Island with his family and friends from Dieppe, N.B. On Monday, as she walked along the beach at Greenwich, which is part of P.E.I. National Park and is just north of St. Peter’s Bay, she heard some noise.
“I couldn’t believe it, honest to God. “At the time, the waves were moving it around so much that we didn’t even know if it was alive or dead,” Durelle said.
“I wanted to find sea glass and driftwood, but I didn’t want to find a shark.”
Parks Canada officials confirmed to CBC News on Tuesday that a “juvenile great white shark” measuring 2.6 meters had been found at Greenwich and sent to the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown for an autopsy.
“The white shark of the Atlantic (Carcharodon carcharias) is on Schedule 1 of the Canadian Species at Risk Act as an endangered species,” the statement said. “These sharks have always been in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but they have never been seen on the shores of P.E.I. National Park before.”
In the last few years, white sharks have been seen in a number of places in Atlantic Canada, including Greenwich.
White sharks have been found dead on other beaches in the area, and fishermen say that they are also seeing more live sharks, including some in P.E.I. waters.
Experts say that shark encounters are becoming more common as populations recover thanks to protection measures in Canada and the U.S. and as the number of grey seals in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean grows.
“The shark population is coming back in a big way,” said Steve Crawford, an associate professor in the department of integrative biology at the University of Guelph. “More people will hear about and see white sharks this year and in the next few years than ever before,” says a scientist.
Shark likely starve
Crawford said he doesn’t know why more and more sharks are washing up on Atlantic shores, but it’s possible that young white sharks aren’t finding enough food on their way north.
“When they are young, they eat mostly fish, but in Atlantic Canada, they switch to bigger fish like tuna or marine mammals,” he said.
“If the grey seals are too big for them and they can’t find smaller marine mammals to eat, it’s possible that these young seals are going hungry here.”
Crawford said that most sharks head back south in September and October.
He said that there should be more signs on Atlantic beaches telling people that different kinds of sharks do come to the area and that being “shark-smart” is important.
Sharks are a natural and important part of the ecosystem, and there aren’t many reasons for people to worry about their safety.— Parks Canada
“A lot of people come to the beaches, but they don’t know that white sharks come here during certain times of the year,” he said.
Parks Canada said in a statement that it knows white sharks can make people nervous, but that visitors shouldn’t worry too much about running into one.
Officials said, “Sharks are a natural and important part of the ecosystem, and there aren’t many safety concerns about them.”
Mysterious creature
Crawford is working on a project to find out what Indigenous people and other people with local knowledge in the Northwest Atlantic may know about great white sharks that scientists may not.
He said that he hopes his research will help people learn more about the animal’s mating and courtship territories, which are still not well known.
He also said that his conversations might have taught him something about how other people act.
“Fishermen have started to think that maybe white sharks are smart enough that instead of chasing tuna, they are now chasing the tuna fishery,” Crawford said.
“They think that the sharks have figured out that if they follow that boat, there’s a good chance that a tuna will be right behind it that they can eat easily.”