Great White Sharks Swarm Maine: A Conservation Success Story

When lifeguard Greg Wilfert was out near Scarborough in August, he felt a sudden tug on his rescue buoy and thought he’d been caught on a boat propeller. In reality, a great white shark gave him a very close hello.

Wilfert isn’t the only one who’s had a brush with a white this summer. Over a two‑day span in August, a handful of divers and beach‑goers reported a dozen separate sightings near Pine Point Beach, and the state even shut some stretches of shoreline for safety. The sightings kept coming all the way to Labor Day, when a fisherman off Wells snagged a massive white about 30 miles down the coast.

At first glance, the headlines sound ominous – “sharks overrunning Maine.” But most scientists we spoke to say the story is actually one of recovery, not disaster. The waters off Maine are heating up faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, thanks to a string of marine heatwaves and the ever‑present influence of El Niño. That warming certainly reshapes marine life, yet it’s only one piece of a larger puzzle.

Back in the 1970s, great whites were on the brink in U.S. waters. Overfishing, by‑catch, and trophy hunting had taken a heavy toll. When the Jaws craze hit the screens, it didn’t help public perception. The tide began to turn in the 1990s when federal agencies finally listed the species as protected, and they also gave gray seals – the sharks’ favorite snack – similar safeguards.

Fast forward to today, Maine runs a relatively new acoustic telemetry program. Tiny tags attached to a shark’s fin emit a unique signal that underwater receivers pick up, letting researchers map movements along the coast. The system isn’t perfect – not every white is tagged – but it gives a clearer picture than we had a decade ago.

Shark biologists Matthew Davis of the Maine DNR and Professor Walter Golet at the University of Maine both agree: there are simply more great whites around now than there were in the ’80s or ’90s. The timeline lines up nicely with the protections enacted years ago, especially considering that male whites need about 26 years and females up to 33 years to reach breeding age. Those cohorts are just now showing up as adults.

Climate change adds its own twist. Warmer seas can push prey species farther north, extending the feeding season for sharks. James Sulikowski of Oregon State notes that great whites are adept at regulating their body temperature, so they can tolerate a broader range of water temperatures than many other sharks. The bigger impact may be indirect: fish and seals lingering longer in the water, giving the predators a reason to stick around.

And let’s not forget the human factor. Hotter days mean more beach crowds, and more people are armed with high‑definition phones, drones and even portable sonar. The result? A spike in documented sightings that might have slipped by in earlier, less‑tech‑savvy summers.

So, are great whites “overrunning” Maine? The answer is nuanced. There are definitely more of them, thanks to successful conservation, and we’re better at spotting them. That combination creates the impression of a shark surge, even as the animals themselves are simply living out a long‑delayed comeback.