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A Twitter user recently raised the alarm by posting a screenshot of a tracker app showing about 100 sharks gathering in the Atlantic Ocean near the East Coast of the US.
A platform user with the handle @punished_stu tweeted early Wednesday “sharks are amassing on the east coast” with an accompanying screenshot of about 100 sharks along the US coast line. The tweet went viral, garnering more than 6,000 retweets and 53,000 likes.
“I occasionally log in to check that the nearest Great White is at least 2000 miles away,” the Twitter user followed up.
The graphic came from shark tracking website Ocearch, which attempted to calm unnerved social media users.
A spokesperson for the tracker told The Sun there’s no cause for concern.
“We are currently studying the Northwest Atlantic White Shark, the white sharks that live off the Eastern United States and Canada,” the rep explained. “This is why we have so many recently tagged sharks in this area. We have tagged 83 white sharks in the NW Atlantic.”
Dr. Christopher Lowe, Director of the Shark Lab at California State University, said the predatory fish detections weren’t “terribly uncommon” and that climate change is the likely culprit for the uptick in sharks along the coast.
“This isn’t terribly uncommon since most of these sharks were likely tagged at nearshore locations,” he said, according to the Sun. “Although, this is typically the season when smaller sharks are migrating to warmer southern waters.
He added, “Much of this pattern is likely attributed to changing oceanographic conditions caused by climate change.”
Over the summer, shark sightings in Florida increased as more people returned to beaches.
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