Did You Know Maine is Home to 8 Types of Sharks?

Sharks have been top-of-mind for many Mainers (and Maine visitors) these days, because of the horrific fatal attack that occurred near Harpswell last month.

Since many of us don't think of the waters of Maine being shark-infested, this may surprise a few people.

According to WGME, the waters off the coast of Maine are home to EIGHT different types of sharks! These include the blue shark, spiny dogfish, basking shark, shortfin mako, porbeagle, thresher, sand tiger shark, and the great white shark.

These sharks encompass a wide variety of sizes. The spiny dogfish is a mere four feet long, the ferocious great white can be up to twenty feet long, and the basking shark can grow to as large as twenty-eight feet!

Here's the part where you ask yourself why all of these sharks have traveled from warmer waters to the chilly waters off the coast of Maine. Food! According to the experts, they've made the trip so that they can feed of Maine's seal population. This became quite evident to many of us when we started seeing images of chewed-up seal parts come across our social media feeds in the days following that fatal shark attack.

If you want to know more about local shark sightings, you can download the Sharktivity app.

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