Great white shark populations are surging on the East Coast, but New Jersey beachgoers say they still plan to hit the shore this July 4.
"It does concern me because one of them was close," local woman Lucy Loughran
told reporters from The Associated Press. "But it doesn't bother me enough to keep me out of the water. A friend of my husband caught a sand tiger shark recently, and that freaked me out when I saw all those teeth. But as much as I think about it, I keep going into the water. I know a lot of people are afraid of sharks, but what can you do?"
Great whites have been spotted off Cape May and Long Beach Island in recent weeks, and a study by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said their numbers are exploding.
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On Tuesday,
CBS New York interviewed a fisherman named Merl outside of Jingles Bait and Tackle in Beach Haven, New Jersey, who said, "I think the risk for me is zero," since he fishes in a boat.
"It's not unusual that there's sharks out there," he said. "I think it's unusual that they're just starting to possibly trace their movements — I’ve seen that they’re tagging sharks and whatever, and I think they’re just learning about probably what’s always been there, and they’re just finding out that, you know, it’s ocean out there and there are sharks there."
On June 20, another fisherman was reported to have hooked a juvenile shark that measured 6 feet long and weighed over 100 pounds a mile and a half off Long Beach Island.
"I don't go out far enough so I'm not concerned, but my son is a surfer, so that's somewhat of a concern," said Karen Delmonaco of Ship Bottom. "We've been coming here our whole lives, and it never was an issue. We're in their realm. This is their environment we're coming into."
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