Andromache, the white shark hitting N.B waters, 'a good sign for wildlife'

Atlantic Canada may not need a bigger boat but more white sharks are popping up in the Bay of Fundy, and according to researchers, it's an encouragingsign for wildlife.

On Mondaymorning, a female white shark named Andromache, first located by researchers off Cape Cod, Mass., about two years ago, was found in Chignecto Bay off the New Brunswick coast.

This marks the first time Andromache has travelled to Canadian waters.

"This is pretty exciting a lot of our sharks tend to either spend the summer in the Massachusetts area and Cape Cod and that feeding ground there or in Atlantic Canada, and not so much both," said Dr. Bob Hueter, chief scientist at Ocearch, a non-profit research organization based in Utah specializing in marine research.

He credits Andromache for being a "rule breaker."

"She's kind of breaking whatever rules there are about the movements of these animals. And it underlines thegreat importance of Atlantic Canada to this species and this particular population.

As Andromache hits Canadian waters, Hueter's team at Ocearch is getting ready to do its 44th expedition in Canada, beginning at the end of August.

Bringing oceans back to balance

Team members plan to hone in on understanding the life cycle of the white shark to inform management and conservation policy and rebuild the population to bring oceans back to balance.

Until about six years ago, Atlantic Canada was thought to be a part of the range of thewhite shark, but just a "fringe area."

According to Hueter, the species was even classified as endangered in Canadian waters because the sharks werethought to never be in the region. Now they're here in good numbers.

"The fact that white sharks have been protected as endangered species in Canadian waters has probably made it possible for them to survive and flourish there," he said.

WATCH |'Rule-breaker' shark explores the Bay of Fundy

Great white shark ventures far into Bay of Fundy waters

2 years ago

Duration 1:04

This shark usually summers in U.S. waters but decided to visit Canada instead.

After many decades of depletion, having declined to a level of about 25 per cent their original numbers, Hueterexpects to see more sharks showing up along the East Coast of North America, including Atlantic Canada.

He says this is a critically important summer feeding area for this species to spend time in cooler water, bulk up and gain energy to make it through the winter.

"I often draw the analogy that, yeah, she's smart, like our Canadian friends who spend the summertime in the cooler waters," said Hueter.

"These animals are more sophisticated than people give them credit for. They're not just ocean roamers they really do know their place in the ocean in terms of being able to navigate to specific places and return to those places with great fidelity."

A good sign for Bay of Fundy

Fred Whoriskey, executive director of the ocean-tracking network at Dalhousie University, said the shark's appearance in Chignecto Baycan be agood sign for the Bay of Fundy. And for salmon.

"It's a sign of a recovering population," he said. "Anda recovering population is going to do interesting things like provide a major predator that seals fear."

He notes that by doing so, seals will begin to change their distribution patternand begin to move away from some salmon rivers they have been congregating at and let more salmon in.

"It'll put some sort of balance back in our ecosystems that people have been looking for," said Whoriskey.