Great White Florida migration

[Dani Pierone]

Great White Sharks Are Mysteriously Gathering Near The Southeast Of The US

 

[Lostdiver71]

I have several thousand dives in South East Florida and have never seen a Great White! I have seen just about everything else including Whale Sharks, Tiger Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks, Manta Rays dolphins and even a Humpback Whale once. Seeing a Great White is on my bucket list!

 

[Dani Pierone]

I’m quite jealous of your sharky encounters. Tigers, Mantas, and any whales are on my long bucket list. I head to Florida for a couple days of diving in March. Keeping my eyes peeled for any white sharks.

 

[McGriffin]

Great White Sharks Are Mysteriously Gathering Near The Southeast Of The US

Thanks, this was an interesting article.

 

[McGriffin]

Thanks everybody for the responses. I know that the chances of seeing a great white are pretty rare in most places, and that other potentially aggressive species are more common, but where I live there are stories in the news of sightings all the time in the summer with video or photos shot by fishermen or people on the beach. I'm still pretty much a novice diver so encountering one is something that I would like to avoid. I'm interested in diving in Key Largo, and it sounds like seeing a GW is a very rare occurrence there.

This is the great white activity for 2019 on Cape Cod. The orange icons are pings of tagged sharks and the blue icons are sightings.

... and these are the signs at the beaches:

 

[scubadada]

I have several thousand dives in South East Florida and have never seen a Great White! I have seen just about everything else including Whale Sharks, Tiger Sharks, Hammerhead Sharks, Manta Rays dolphins and even a Humpback Whale once. Seeing a Great White is on my bucket list!

I only have a few over 1000 dives in SE Florida. I have seen Hammerhead Sharks (big Great Hammerhead in Boynton just last August), a Tiger Shark, Manta Rays, Mobula Rays, sailfish, dolphins, and Eagle Rays, I've not seen a Whale Shark, a Humpback Whale, or a Great White Shark. I will be down March 3-11, I will certainly be looking around

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Thanks everybody for the responses. I know that the chances of seeing a great white are pretty rare in most places, and that other potentially aggressive species are more common, but where I live there are stories in the news of sightings all the time in the summer with video or photos shot by fishermen or people on the beach. I'm still pretty much a novice diver so encountering one is something that I would like to avoid. I'm interested in diving in Key Largo, and it sounds like seeing a GW is a very rare occurrence there.

This is the great white activity for 2019 on Cape Cod. The orange icons are pings of tagged sharks and the blue icons are sightings.
View attachment 569853

... and these are the signs at the beaches:
View attachment 569854

The main reason Cape Cod is such a white shark magnet is that there's a dense enough supply of prey (gray seals) to support a couple hundred white sharks there (and yes, the number up there in the summer is probably in the low hundreds). We're not sure what they're munching on off the southeastern US - tarpon, blacktip sharks, whale calves, take a guess - but they are much more spread out.

 

[McGriffin]

That's true. The seals became protected in the 70's and within the last decade or so their population has exploded. In 2018 NOAA estimated that there are between 22,000 and 33,000 gray seals and about 75,000 harbor seals. They make tasty snacks for GWs!

 

[Catito]

I thought I read in the mainstream news of one being sighted just recently? I got the impression a sighting is very rare.

Yes. Two weeks ago. Very rare.