Shark Sightings Continue Along the Southern Maine Coast

KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE — Sharks were sighted Thursday off Gooch's Beach in Kennebunk and Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport. Kennebunkport police issued a social media advisory asking beachgoers to remain alert, to exit the water calmly and alert others if they see one, and to call the department's business line. No species identification was made in either sighting, and no closure was ordered. That detail is worth holding onto. A shark sighting is a report by a person on a beach or a boat, not a confirmed identification, and the two get conflated fast in coverage. Some sightings are basking sharks, which are harmless filter feeders, or seals breaking the surface. The sightings fit a pattern this summer. Wells Beach closed to swimmers on August 12 after a sighting, and there have been reports from Biddeford and Scarborough, where a lifeguard was reportedly pulled underwater earlier this month. Great white sharks move up the Gulf of Maine in late summer following gray seals, whose population has grown substantially since the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 ended hunting of them. The underlying story is a recovering ecosystem rather than a new danger. More seals means more of what eats seals, in the same water where people swim in August.

Background

Maine recorded its first fatal shark attack in 2020, off Bailey Island. Before that the state had no confirmed fatality on record. The change in shark presence tracks the seal recovery closely, which is a case of a successful conservation law producing a consequence that was foreseeable but not much discussed at the time.

Why it matters: Advisories are only as good as the identification behind them. Towns balancing tourism against caution have to make decisions on thin information, and the thinness rarely makes it into the alert.

What to watch: Whether any Southern Maine town orders closures over the weekend, and what tagged-shark tracking data shows for the Gulf of Maine through Labor Day.