Is it a sign of the a-jaw-calypse?
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the New York area has seemingly been under siege from a veritable sharknado in 2026 — with a spike in sightings and close encounters of the big fish kind.
This month alone, authorities have temporarily red-flagged or shuttered beaches from Long Island to The Rockaways, where an alleged “swarm” of suspected bull sharks, typically found in warmer climes than ours, was spotted offshore.
Meanwhile, just a couple of weekends ago, a swimmer was savaged off Jones Beach by a suspected shark — which decided to snack on the poor funseeker’s foot, chomping it straight to the bone.
“The man who got bit said that it felt like a jaw-biting motion and that it went clean through,” recalled lifeguard Kate Maio, who tended to the victim’s wounds.
But is swimming at New York beaches like, in the words of Chief Brody from “Jaws,” “ringing the dinner bell?” Or could the hysteria be just a bit overblown?
The first few bites
Officials claim The Rockaways have experienced record sharktivity — with 23 shark sightings since May 23, most of them between July 1 and July 5, NBC 4 reported.
However, bona fide bites have plunged since the bloodbaths of 2022 and 2023 — when there were 13 reported fin-counters on Big Apple-adjacent shores, including five in a particularly gory three-week stretch.
Hans Walters, the Curator for the Animal Department at the New York Aquarium, believes there’s roughly the same number of sharks that have always been — we’re just noticing them more.
“Sightings probably are [increasing],” the fish expert, who’s been studying the fearsome beasts for three decades and counting, told The Post. “If you look for something, as long as it exists, you’re going to find it. We are looking for sharks. We’re looking for them because they either terrify us or they fascinate us.”
He also noted that improved technology, from Go-Pros to drones, makes the predators easier to spot than before.
A bunch of bullsh-arks
But while he’s hesitant to say there are more sharks overall, Walters concedes that certain species might be summering a bit longer in the tri-state area than in years past — saying that these seasonal visitors might be “coming up here a little earlier and staying a little later.”
A 2025 Stony Brook study found that some types of sharks were lingering for up to a month longer than usual — a trend pinned on warming waters.
But Walters doesn’t buy the briny theory that’s being floated lately, that tropical-dwelling bull sharks are invading New York. He noted that the aforementioned reports of so-called “swarms” of these creatures, who rarely migrate up this far, were likely false.
“The photograph that I saw taken from a drone, there is no way that I could identify the animal as a bull shark,” said the shark buff, who believes it was more likely a brown shark or similarly stocky species.
This isn’t Florida, or not yet, anyway — we don’t have a murderer’s row of apex predators lurking just offshore, Walters emphasized.
Instead, he explained, the northeast surf is typically frequented by fish eaters such as threshers and sand tigers — not exactly the human food processors they’re portrayed as.
Shark worse than their bite?
When these species do get their hooks into a human, Walters doesn’t believe it’s a targeted attack — nor is it mistaken identity, as is popularly supposed.
Rather, it’s more on par with a car crash, the pro explained.
“I have a lot more faith in the visual acuity of sharks. They’re not biting a foot thinking, ‘oh, I thought that was a fish,’” said Walters, who’s also a field scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Bight Program.
“What I think is happening is we’re getting in the way,” he said. “We’re swimming, we’re boogie boarding and a shark is in the surf feeding on schooling fish and we blunder into one another.”
He noted that some species, like the sand tiger, known for undulating rows of snaggly teeth, will sidle up to a school of fish “very slowly” and then snap down.
“[If] you’re there at that moment for the snap … you get tagged,” said Walters, surmising that if the creatures actually mistook a human for fish, the damage would assuredly be more grievous than is typical in these parts.
A view to a kill
The rise in sightings pairs with an uptick in anticipation. Officials across Queens and Long Island are increasingly relying on drones for proactive predator surveillance, prompting swift, intermittent closures of at-risk swimming zones whenever sharks are spotted close to the shore.
“We’re using that technology in the name of public safety to help prevent something from happening,” said Cary Epstein, a lifeguard supervisor who pilots drones at Jones Beach. “The likelihood is really, really slim, but it can happen.”
This year, Gov. Hochul increased Long Island’s fleet to 46 drones and 67 drone operators, with experts crediting these eyes in the sky for helping curb the number of encounters.
Defense against the shark arts
Of course, beach-goers can do their part to reduce the likelihood of a bite, Walters said, by staying away from schools of prey fish, known as bait balls.
“Don’t swim in a bait ball and look for the bait ball,” instructed Walters, adding that these are denoted by a surface disturbance “not caused by wind or waves.”
He commended lifeguards and drone operators for watching, not just for sharks, but also the fish that attract them.
Other helpful tidbits include refraining from swimming at dusk or dawn, when visibility is reduced, and when the chances of getting help from others are few and far between.
In the unlikely event that it clamps on, “you do what you got to do,” per Walters.
In a word, according to experts at the University of Florida, that means clawing back — using your fists to hit at sensitive spots such as the gills and eyes.
“The chance of you getting injured by a shark, it’s infinitesimal, but remember that the ocean is a wilderness,” said Walters.
“Whenever you enter a natural wild environment, there’s always some risk. Situational awareness is the most important thing.”
Read the full article here
