Great white shark detections near Jaws filming location reach over 150,000

There were 159,598 great white shark detections off Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 2021, a record high for the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy tagging tracker.

The previous high had been in 2020 with 136,135 detections. To put those 2021 figures in some sort of context, which doesn’t mean that there had been 150,000 different sharks that have passed through Cape Cod, but that the sharks they have tagged have pinged off Cape Cod on this number of occasions.

Last year the Conservancy, which has detection data going back to 2010, tagged an extra 46 great white sharks.

There was a total of 132 individual Great Whites detected, which is an average of 1.209 detections per shark.

This number gives a sense of just how many times a single great white is in a particular area. And it is perhaps no surprise that activity is high along the Cape Cod area because of the large seal population.

Jaws, Jaws 2 and Jaws The Revenge were filmed on Martha’s Vineyard

August was the highest recorded month for shark activity with 57, 458 detections, in second highest spot was September with 32, 935 and October with 30, 833.

What the data cannot show is the number of great white sharks that they haven’t tagged. It does however give a great insight into the movement patterns of great whites and shows us that just because you can’t see them it doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.

Not that great whites are sat waiting for someone to swim by.

Words by Dean Newman

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