A pair of shark species responsible for at least 24% of Florida’s shark bites have been spotted off Rhode Island in recent summers, apparently drawn by warming waters, a local shark researcher says.
Blacktip and spinner sharks are common in the warm water off Florida, but researcher Jon Dodd, executive director of the Atlantic Shark Institute in Wakefield, was surprised to see the two species of similar-looking sharks off Rhode Island in the summer of 2020.