There Are Way More Great White Sharks in the Pacific Than Previously Thought

It's all too rare to get to report something postive about the ocean or apex predators, so I'm going to bust out the exclamation point: great white sharks aren't as endangered as we thought!

According to new research by American and Australian researchers, the North Pacific actually has a healthy population of great white sharks, and the number might even be on an upward swing.

“We determined there were enough animals that there was a low to very low risk of extinction, and in fact, most developments suggest an increasing population,” said fisheries research biologist Heidi Dewar, in a press release.

The team's research was conducted in response to a 2011 study of white shark populations off the coast of central California that found that the population was down to 219 mature and sub-adults at two sites. While the white shark is already protected by California law, that study was the main impetus behind a push to get the shark on both the federal and state endangered species list.

However, the National Marine Fisheries Service found that the eastern North Pacific population was closer to a much-healthier 3,000 sharks. “That we found these sharks are doing OK, better than OK, is a real positive in light of the fact that other shark populations are not necessarily doing as well,” said George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research. Burgess is also a co-founder of the Shark Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

The Florida study points out some flaws in the assumptions made in 2011, and how the study was conducted, which basically come to down to the undeniable fact that it's really difficult to estimate the number of sharks in the sea. They can migrate for hundreds of miles and be gone for years at a time. Also, conspicuously, it's not like they need to pop up for air ever.

And despite grasping our imaginations like Quint, we're still learning new things about white sharks all the time.

For instance, in March, we witnessed the first white shark to be tracked crossing the mid-Atlantic ridge. As one shark researcher pointed out, sharks could do this all the time, this was just the first time we had witnessed it. The shark's name was Lydia, and she had been tagged in Florida a year prior. After kicking it up and down the East Coast, she headed towards the UK into water that people had long assumed was too cold for sharks like her.

New tech like Ocearch's shark tracking website isn't just blowing the minds of shark fans; it's blowing researchers' minds as well.

"Every track is giving us new information and going contrary to all the assumptions that we were going on," Robert Hueter, director of the center for shark research at Mote Marine Laboratory, told The Wire. Hueter is tracking two sharks named Katharine and Betsy who are cruising the Gulf of Mexico , something researchers thought only happened during the winter.

“White sharks are the largest and most charismatic of the predator sharks, and the poster child for sharks and the oceans in general,” said Burgess. “If something is wrong with the largest, most powerful group in the sea, then something is wrong with the sea, so it’s a relief to find they’re in good shape.”

Well, there's still plenty wrong with the ever-more acidic, ever more plastic-filled sea, but it appears that great white sharks, badasses they are, are doing better than we thought.