It’s not often you hear an expert say shark populations are going up. “At first I didn’t believe it,” says Dr. Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach. “We’re telling the public that shark populations are in trouble…but when I started to look more into the system, I thought, ‘Maybe this is real.'”
In our first installment of Shark Minutes, we spoke with Dr. Lowe about global shark trends. Among the general public, in many parts of the world, there is a suspicion that shark sightings–and even attacks–are becoming more common. Some leading marine biologists have gone on record to say that shark attacks are occurring at increasing rates due to rises in human populations.
But, according to Dr. Chris Lowe, good environmental policy–at least in the United States–has resulted in shark populations making a comeback. “In many ways,” he says, “we have a healthier ocean now than we did 40 years ago.”
