UNF professor: Sharks can sense when a hurricane is on the way

A University of North Florida professor says sharks can detect when a hurricane or other storm is heading toward Northeast Florida.

“They can sense it. We believe they can sense changes in barometric pressure, letting them know when a storm is on the way,” Dr. James Gelsleichter, a UNF Assistant Professor of Biology, said.

Gelsleichter said a study was done on juvenile sharks in the early 2000s. A tropical storm and Hurricane Charley moved through while the sharks were being tracked.

“Estuaries are more shallow and would be subjected to more amounts of environmental stress,” he said.

Experts say smaller sharks that usually stay in estuaries will leave and move out toward the beach or deeper waters.

Once the storm passes and salinity levels return to normal, the sharks make their way back to where they came from.

So we asked if after storms, could we see more shark and human interaction?

“To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been any indication of an increase in human-shark interactions at the time. Is it possible? Yes, but I’m not so sure it’s likely to occur,” he said.

He said with more tagging of sharks, there may be an opportunity to learn more about human-shark interaction after storms in the future.

Cox Media Group