With more and more great white sharks flocking north to hunt for seals, there are new opportunities to get up close and personal with the toothy apex predators.
The latest ecotourism expedition in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean involves cage diving with sharks at a growing great white shark hotspot.
Atlantic Shark Expeditions off of Nova Scotia, Canada has openings for its 7-hour trips this fall. People on the expeditions can view sharks from the boat, or get cozy with great whites in the water from the shark cage.
“It’s really great to engage the public in science and conservation, and it’s a cool opportunity for them to see these rare and special animals that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to,” Neil Hammerschlag, founder of Atlantic Shark Expeditions, told the Herald.
The cage diving can totally change peoples’ perspectives of the apex predators, added Hammerschlag, who used to be the director of the Shark Research and Conservation Program at the University of Miami.
“People may think that the sharks come rushing in, but that’s not at all what they’re experiencing,” he said. “When the sharks are there, they’re slow and gorgeous, and not menacing at all.”
Hammerschlag had been studying great white sharks off of South Africa. That shark population has now disappeared, while the opposite has been happening off of Canada in the Atlantic. The reasons are not clear, but it’s likely related to their recovering populations, increases in their prey, and warming waters from climate change.
Great whites now migrate to the waters off of Nova Scotia every summer and fall, along with the Cape Cod shore.
“People are amazed at the science,” Hammerschlag said of the guests on the expeditions. “We make it educational and informative on the boat… It’s a really rewarding experience for people.”
Atlantic Shark Expeditions is authorized to conduct scientific research with great whites via a permit by the Canadian government under the Species at Risk Act. Through this research, ecotourists can join scientists on boat-based expeditions to search for sharks, view sharks from the boat and underwater from the cage, learn from the research team, and watch scientific activities.
The expedition’s shark cage opening is 7-feet tall, 7-feet wide, and 3-feet deep. The cage holds three to four people at a time. The opening of the shark cage sits at the surface, so all cage diving is with a mask and snorkel (not scuba).
“While bait is indeed used to create an attractive smell that lures sharks to the boat, the amount of bait we use pales in comparison to the copious amounts of attractive smell being emitted by their natural prey (like seals),” the expedition’s website reads.
“In fact, we often focus on areas where there are lots of seals present as the seals are what attract sharks to the area,” the website adds. “In addition to the odors emanating from their natural prey, the boat-based attractants used in our shark research and ecotourism pales in comparison to the huge amount of chumming being conducted by fisherman to catch fish.”
To learn more about Atlantic Shark Expeditions and to book a trip this fall, visit www.atlanticsharkexp.com/great-whites-nova-scotia.