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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. You've been hearing about the state of shark sightings and even some shark bites from Long Island to the Rockaways which have prompted officials to alert swimmers and close some beaches altogether. On Tuesday, the City Parks Department decided to close off Rockaway Beach to swimmers after two nearshore sightings despite the high temperatures in the city.

You may have caught the video of a shark leaping out of the water close to the shore shared by The Rockaway Times. For all the attention sharks are getting, bites are still rare. The Florida Museum of Natural History reported yesterday that from June 30th to July 20th, there have been six possible shark bites in New York state though not all have been confirmed.

There have only been four bites in the last decade, one in 2012, one in 2015, and two in 2018. It may be incredibly rare, but six possible shark bites in New York state in one year is also incredibly rare. These sightings, while scary to beachgoers, are both a result of a robust conservation effort that has repopulated fishes in New York waters. Yes, in a way, it's the result of a good thing and a result of warmer temperatures due to climate change, driving more sharks up north.

Joining me now to discuss the different factors that are luring sharks to the waters around the city is Tobey Curtis, Fishery Management Specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, or as he refers to himself, he's a NOAA shark scientist. Dr. Curtis, welcome to WNYC.

Tobey Curtis: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Can you talk first about it being a good news in a certain respect that there are more sharks in our area?

Tobey Curtis: Sure, yes. A healthy shark population is a sign of a healthy ocean ecosystem. The environment is clean. It's gotten better. We've reduced water pollution. We've helped-- as you mentioned, we've been conserving species, fish, mammals. We've been recovering wild fish populations including sharks in the region.

These are all just signs of a healthy ocean environment. In that sense, it's a conservation success story. This is the sign that our fisheries management is working and we have a more revitalized ocean environment than we've had in recent decades.

Brian Lehrer: How much of the shark activity we're seeing can be linked to climate change?

Tobey Curtis: It's linked but not in the way you might think. Climate change isn't necessarily affecting the numbers of sharks that are off New York. It's affecting the types of sharks we have off New York. As the waters have been warming, we're getting more southerly species, things like spinner sharks and black dip sharks which were historically uncommon off New York. They're now becoming more common during the summer months.

Also, the flip side is that when it's hot, more people go to the beach. As climate change's progressing, warming, human populations are growing, and the temperatures are hotter. There's just more people going to the beach and it takes two to tango. You need people and sharks in the same place at the same time for these interactions to occur. It's human behavior driving the pattern more than the shark behavior.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anything you want to know about sharks in our area but had no one to ask? Now you do, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 with our shark scientist guest, 212-433-WNYC, or tweet your question @BrianLehrer. Anecdotally, we're seeing more sharks and some people are unfortunate enough to experience bites, but are there actually more sharks in our area or are they just getting closer to the shore than usual?

Tobey Curtis: It's a bit of both. As I mentioned, our fisheries management has improved the numbers of shark prey species like bait fish, particularly menhaden in New York, but also, we've been conserving shark populations for over 30 years now. That's NOAA's role in the process, is conserving and managing shark fisheries. We do have growing shark populations for a number of species, including those that are common in New York like sandbar and dusky sharks, and so that's a big part of it.

You have more fish in the water and more sharks attracted to their natural prey, those fish. There's also more people with cell phones, more people with drones, and have social media, so there's this effect of just more visibility. When people see a shark, it's much easier to spread that information and make the broader community more aware of it. There's a social media, camera phone, and drone effect, as well as the actual increase in the shark population.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Like we had that video of the spinning shark in the Rockaways and Gothamist report said it was likely a spinner shark. That's a species, a non-aggressive species known for its high-flying feeding strategy, and it's one of the handful of tropical sharks that have appeared off New York's coast in recent years, that from Gothamist. That's an example of a different type of species than we would've even seen here before.

Tobey Curtis: Yes, is correct. They're rare, except for, it seems, like the last several years. Anecdotally, we've been seeing more of them-- scientific collaborators that I've worked with at the South Fork Natural History Museum have tagged several spinner sharks in the last couple years. We've been studying their movements off Long Island, and so it's something that is new to all of us. There are new species to the region, and so it's-- they're here for the food, just like all the other sharks, but there's always been sharks off Long Island. It's just a different mix of species with the climate change overlaid on the big picture.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey public radio and live streaming at wnyc.org with Tobey Curtis, shark scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, and Nora at the Jersey Shore, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nora.

Nora: Oh, good morning, Brian. It's such a pleasure to talk to you. I just dried off a little while ago. I was in the ocean this morning here in the Jersey Shore. I've seen a lot of wildlife in my 65-plus years of swimming here every day in the summer. This morning, I saw what I think was a striper, which is like a game fish that people want to catch when they go surf fishing. He was really close in, but I think the ocean is changing. Anecdotally speaking, the water is warming up earlier in the season.

I feel like the jet stream that creates the water in the summer at the Jersey Shore, I feel like it's going in and out, like one day the water is like 75 degrees and then like a day later, it's like barely 62. That's been my anecdotal experience.

Brian Lehrer: So interesting, Nora. After you say 60 years of swimming in the ocean at the Jersey Shore, what about that variability day to day in the temperature? Is that something you've heard before? Is that something that's common, Dr. Curtis?

Tobey Curtis: Oh, sorry. Yes. Ocean current's very complex and the Gulf stream, as you may know, is a very warm ocean current that runs offshore along the East Coast off New Jersey, New York. There can be little spinoff eddies, warm water or cold water that come in as blobs. They last a couple of days and that's the kind of oceanographic effect that can change those temperatures day to day and with those temperature differences, come, again, different mix of species, different sharks, different prey fish can be in those different water temperatures.

Brian Lehrer: Listener asks on Twitter, do the sharks bite because they're hungry or because they're scared?

Tobey Curtis: In these cases, the sharks are biting mostly for mistaken identity. The sharks are chasing their natural prey which is bait fish. If the water's murky and someone's hand or foot is hanging in the water or someone's standing in the middle of the school of fish, the sharks are in that murk chasing their natural prey and they make a mistake and they mistake a hand or a foot for their natural food. It's really mistaken identity, not their intent to bite people. If sharks wanted to bite people, it would happen much more frequently. In this case, it's mostly just an accident.

Brian Lehrer: Ron in Bedford, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ron.

Ron: Hey, good morning, Brian. Thanks for taking my call, as always, super interesting and timely. I grew up on Long Island. I know fishing is still a big part of commerce and the community there. I'm wondering if shark fishing is allowed? Not that it might control it, but is it a reaction that could happen? I'll take the answer off the air. Thanks.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Dr. Curtis.

Tobey Curtis: Yes, shark fishing is definitely allowed in New York waters. There's a number of regulations for recreational and commercial fishermen. Only certain species can be kept. A lot of the species common off New York like sand tiger, sandbar, and dusky sharks are actually protected, so fishermen can't keep them. The same thing with white sharks.

There's a number of species that have total protection from fisheries but there are others that are actually very important commercial and recreational fisheries, four fisheries like thresher sharks, blue sharks, dogfish and so there are shark fisheries but they're very strongly regulated and managed by state and federal agencies.

Brian Lehrer: I've read that people are a much bigger threat to sharks than they are to us. According to the World Wildlife Organization, overfishing is depleting virtually all threatened sharks with habitat loss and destruction, and the climate crisis compounding the risks affecting one in three species respectively. That's quote from World Wildlife, and Science Magazine reported last year, "Shark populations in the high seas have fallen by 71% since 1970". We're talking about more sharks around here but sharks globally are way, way down.

Tobey Curtis: Yes, that's correct. It's tough to separate sharks globally from what's happening locally. The big picture globally for sharks is bleak. There's overfishing happening in a lot of places for a lot of species, but you have to keep in mind there's over 500 species of sharks in the world. There's about a dozen that are very common in New York. Those species that are common to New York are actually pretty well protected in US waters.

We have a lot of regulations as I just mentioned, and some of those populations are actually recovering. The species of sharks up New York compared to sharks around the world are very well protected and their populations are on a different trajectory than that global average which is declining largely due to overfishing.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take two calls real quick back to back and get a last word from you before we run out of time. Jillian, with a report from Fire Island. Jillian, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Jillian King: Hi, Brian. This is Jillian King in New York City. I'm so happy to talk to you. I love your show. I had a very strange incident in Fire Island in the middle of June. I was out there. I took a very long walk on the beach. I've been going to Fire Island all of my life and I'm 56 years old. That's a lot of summers. This particular long two-mile walk between Seaview and an area called Sailors Haven, I documented and photographed over 50 dead sharks between say three and a half to five and a half feet long.

I took all these pictures because it was an incredibly strange sighting. I called the Fire Island National Seashore Parks Department and even spoke to the chief ranger about this incident being so unusual. Perhaps it was a fishing accident because at the end of my walk in the area called Sailors Haven, I found a fishing net that was all cut but filled with maybe 30 of the dead sharks that I had documented.

I also called the Fire Island News and spoke to somebody. They called me back. They wanted to have all my photographs and perhaps print an article in the Fire Island News on July 8th, they told me, but the article was never printed. I wondered was this intentional for all these sharks to be killed because it was such a strange thing to see. I've never seen so many dead sharks on any beach in my life and I'm also an ocean swimmer and a surfer. This was so strange. I thought I should report this but it was never publicized. I could send NPR my photographs and I just wonder what happened.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to try to get an answer for you in a minute after I take one more call. Ronald in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. You want to compare our response to sharks to another country's, right?

Ronald: Exactly. In South Africa on the Indian Coast around Devon where there are actually far more sharks and more dangerous sharks even than we have here. They have safety zones for people to swim. They have special technologies that create a safe zone where sharks don't penetrate, don't come in. They also have a shark research center there. I just wondered why that issue is never addressed in areas such as Fire Island or Long Island or now Cape Cod and California.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Dr. Curtis, what do you say to either of these two calls? Do you have any explanation for that run of dead sharks on Fire Island in June, and is there such a thing to your knowledge as a shark safety zone like Ronald is describing in South Africa where they can actually keep sharks away from the swimmers?

Tobey Curtis: Thanks. Regarding the first question, that's definitely an unusual event, seeing so many dead sharks on the beach, but it's not unprecedented. It has happened in the past. You did the right thing by reporting that to this National Seashore, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the DEC, actually monitors these shark stranding events.

It might be worth following up with the DEC to make sure they're aware of it, and if they had a response, sometimes it can be fishing, but sometimes there's been some diseases that have spread amongst sharks or low oxygen in the water, for example. There's a number of reasons that a number of sharks could wash up like that. It's tough to know without sampling the sharks. There could be some ways to follow up there.

Regarding the second question about South Africa, it's a little bit different situation in South Africa. In the past, they had a number of fatal shark bites. They have different situation. They have white sharks, they have bull sharks. They have more dangerous large species and they experienced a number of fatal shark bites down there a long time ago, decades ago. They implemented some safe swimming zones and places where they set up nets or baited hooks to catch and remove large sharks from the area.

That's had an effect to help reduce the number of fatalities in those areas. That's not really the case here in New York. We don't have those species. There haven't been any fatalities, knock on wood. Most of the shark species we have here are actually incapable of inflicting that kind of damage.

Brian Lehrer: People don't like getting bitten even if it's not fatal. Would there be a reason not to do that here?

Tobey Curtis: You have to think about the effects on the population and on the ocean. Again, the sharks being present here is a sign of a healthy ocean environment. If you start removing all those sharks, we're going to be going backwards. We're going to be reducing the benefits of that conservation that success that we've had. There's a lot of other steps you can take to be safe at the beach without getting into killing sharks.

Killing sharks is not really a solution to beach safety. It's really about public education and raising awareness and just helping people make smart decisions about their own behavior at the beach.

Brian Lehrer: Tobey Curtis, fishery management specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Thank you so much for your expertise about sharks. We really appreciate it.

Tobey Curtis: Thank you for having me.

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