Great white sharks menace Blighty

Incredible Creature

Please stop killing this animal (great white). They don't like human flesh as we are not fatty enough and attacks are down to mistaken identity . Great whites are an ENDANGERED SPECIES and it's illegal to catch a great white in US waters. And the maturity rates of great white sharks tend to be slow. Males reach maturity at approximately age 9 and females at about age 15

Sun sensationalist exaggeration. Here are the facts.

This has to be the most uneducated and misleading article I have seen in a long time. It seems The Sun has been getting its information from a certain 1970s movie.

Here I will prove this article to be inaccurate and sensationalist and will prove with logic and reason why its possible white sharks are transient visitors to the UK.

In recent times, research is proving that previous assumptions about White Sharks being coastal territorial sharks that inhabit temperate waters are only half the story , The Great White Shark is one of the most widespread of Shark species and can tolerate water temperature from 4c to 30c, this is confirmed by White Shark sightings/captures in cold Alaskan waters to tropical waters such as Mauritius, Vietnam, Hawaii etc. Thus the fish is not exclusively found in cold or temperate or tropical waters. South Africa has two coastlines, the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, the Atlantic side is similar to UK sea temps and the Indian Ocean side is warm and becomes tropical the further north you go, White Sharks have been found across the entire SA coastline! White Sharks are a migratory fish not territorial coastal fish, one White Shark tagged in SA was tracked going to Australia and back, a round journey of some 1200 miles. The nearest CONFIRMED White Shark capture was off the Bay of Biscay, 200 miles south of the UK coast, and the nearest center of abundance is in the Mediterranean. Based on this is it's very likely White Sharks are visitors to UK waters, maybe at anyone time there is always a White Shark presence in UK waters, or maybe not and there is only the occasional migrant coming through. They have not been caught/photographed here because NUMBERS ARE SO LOW, White Sharks are RARE even in centre of abundance locations, in areas of abundance (eg SA) with extensive tagging programs max 100 have been tagged, and thats where they congregate coming from 1000s of miles! But that said if the UK was "AWASH" or had a feeding ground that attracted even half the numbers of SA, by now there would of been a confirmed sighting/capture.

To summerize. The UK is not awash with White Sharks and there is no regular feeding ground that they congregate to. But they can tolerate UK waters, and have been found so close to the UK that its reasonable to suggest they have and will enter UK waters sporadically.