White Sharks Are All Over The News This Summer With A Rare Rhode Island Sighting
It has been a summer of white shark encounters across the Atlantic and Pacific, and the footage and headlines keep coming. Here is the full picture of what is happening.
In Rhode Island, marine researchers from the Atlantic Shark Institute and Mystic Aquarium captured what the institute calls the first-ever documented close encounter with a great white shark in the state's waters, an 8-foot juvenile feeding on a dead 40-foot humpback whale near Block Island.
The shark appeared as a shadow beneath the whale roughly 10 minutes after the researchers arrived and gave them a prolonged close-up look. Executive director Jon Dodd called it "kind of amazing," white sharks of this age and size are rare in Rhode Island waters, almost exclusively appearing at Cape Cod where grey seals concentrate.
Their expansion into Rhode Island reflects the recovering Atlantic white shark population.
At Jones Beach on New York's Long Island, a swimmer was bitten on the foot in a suspected shark attack in late June, prompting temporary beach closure. Rockaway Beach in Queens reported multiple sightings the same week, and Point Lookout and Hempstead beaches closed briefly.
A great white was also filmed following two paddleboarders off Santa Barbara, California earlier this month, drone footage captured the encounter, and they described being "terrified."
Australia is having its most difficult shark year in recent memory.
Four fatal attacks have already occurred in 2026, all involving great whites, leading New South Wales to invest an additional $34 million in drone surveillance and expand year-round aerial patrols to 38 Sydney beaches starting July 1.
"We know people love getting out to our beaches," Premier Chris Minns said. "This investment is about putting more eyes in the sky."
