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Seasonal visitors in thousands of numbers have been seen across the Jupiter Inlet in Palm Beach County. However, they aren’t the two-legged variety that belong to northern states and call South Florida home for few months in the year.
This time, local scientists have reported massive aggregation of blacktip sharks, some of which have been only a few yards from shore. A professor of biological sciences at Florida Atlantic University, Stephen Kajiura has spent a lot of time researching over them.
However, they aren’t apparently congregating north of Jupiter Inlet or along the Treasure Coast. Gabriella Ferraro, Martin County spokeswoman said that there weren’t any shark sightings at Martin public beaches, and no beaches were shut because of sharks.
Kajiura said that the sharks seem to actually like Palm Beach, and there is a reason behind their liking.
This may be because of the continental shelf, which is an underwater landmass resulting into a region of relatively shallow water, becomes broader further north. He added that the shelf narrows significantly against Palm Beach County, which funnels sharks near to shore.
He continued, “That's why we have this huge number, Palm Beach area and south, where you simply don't have them up north. They're there, but they're probably distributed over much broader area and you just don't see those large dense aggregations that you see down here”.
Kajiura mentioned that since 2011 he's been conducting aerial surveys of shark abundance in Palm Beach County, and in 2015 expanded south to Miami Beach.
According to Kajiura, the huge concentration of blacktip sharks is north of Boynton Inlet to Jupiter Inlet, estimating at over 10,000 of them.
Furthermore, he said that obviously other species migrate but they stay deep within water or they aren’t visible ever, thus the huge numbers are only the blacktips.
