Experts issue warning as they say great white sharks are ‘already in UK’
Great white sharks are 'already' taking advantage of the UK's waters, and they could soon be joined by another toothy predator.
The sea's most deadly sharks are increasingly heading to northern waters in the summer on the hunt for food and cooler temperatures.
The waters surrounding the UK are actually perfect for great whites as they tend to sit between 8C-20C and have a ready supply of grey seals to keep them full.
It has long baffled scientists why they haven't taken it as their home on a permanent basis.
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However, Shark Trust ambassador Tom 'The Blowfish' Hird is of the opinion that they may already be here, but just move on again before anyone has the chance to notice.
"Just because we haven’t seen them, doesn’t mean they’re not here already," he told the Metro.
"We live on a very small island. It’s easy for a great white to swim around in a matter of days.
"There’s no requirement for them to stick in one area, which I believe is why they aren’t usually spotted by scuba divers or picked up by fishing vessels.
"They’re always on the move, and they have
the biology to withstand our seas. The Mediterranean is just a spit and a cough away – certainly, if you’re a shark, it’s very close by."
He is convinced the great whites are already here, adding: "It’s like humans stopping off at a service station.
"The visits are few and fleeting – they come in, they look, and they go – but we do have great whites in British waters."
Hird also reckons they could soon be joined by hammerhead sharks, too.
Hammerheads could follow great whites to the UK
Climate change is causing us on dry land plenty of issues with extreme weather events - heatwaves, floods, storms, wildfires - becoming ever more frequent.
It's having a massive impact on life below the surface, too, with warming waters causing sharks everywhere to migrate.
Hird expects the UK's 20 native shark species to head north for colder climes while those from tropical climates could take their place, like hammerheads.
"Hammerheads might start moving in," He said.
"They make these big open ocean migrations. Their big wide head allows for incredible GPS as they have these little sensory dots that allow them to detect the Earth’s electromagnetic field, as well as the bioelectricity of life hiding under the sand.
"Our country sits on quite a shallow continental shelf; our seas are shallower, so these sensors would be really helpful for them in UK waters."
Hammerheads arriving in the UK would be a bad sign
Hird is quick to stress that sharks being a danger to humans is blown massively out of proportion, with only 10 deaths worldwide a year being attributed to shark attacks.
However, hammerheads moving to Britain does come with a warning, as other species could find themselves on the chopping block.
Hird said: "When we talk about sharks accessing new areas, the phrasing sounds like it’s good, like they are expanding. Actually, what’s happening is they’re being forced out of their true habitats into new ones.
"If a shark is being displaced from tropical to temperate, like hammerheads, and temperate species are being displaced to polar, like great whites, then the polar species have nowhere to go.
"It’s like a bus – one person gets on, and everyone has to shuffle up. The person at the end is either squashed, or has to get off.
"When people need to be really, really worried is not when new sharks are coming in, but when there are no sharks. If we don’t have healthy seas, we will not survive as a species."
Topics: Sharks, Animals, Global Warming
Daniel Murphy