Pirate's Cove

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Could shark sightings in the Midwest become more common?

Sharks are, for the most part, ocean animals. Tens of millions of people living in the landlocked Midwest may have never even seen one in person. However, there are some sharks, like the bull shark, that are able to thrive in freshwater, and they could be coming farther inland than ever before.

“[Bull sharks] are, depending on what study you read, usually in the top three in terms of [being] dangerous to humans, but they’re beautiful animals,” Kevin Feldheim, manager of the Pritzker Laboratory at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, told AccuWeather National Weather Reporter Emmy Victor. He said there were two known sightings in the Mississippi River over the past century: one in Alton, Illinois, in 1937 and another in Missouri in 1995. (snip)

Feldheim said other sharks can tolerate low levels of salt in their environment, but they can’t swim through rivers or lakes like the bull shark. This — combined with summers that could warm by as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century due to climate change — gives them the chance to swim out of the ocean and far into the north-central U.S.

Good grief. Really? I have to wonder, what makes a reporter like Accuweather’s Wyatt Loy even ask about this. Where did it come from? Seriously, this is truly out of the blue. Was it “hey, there are a bunch of shark attacks on the coasts, could sharks go up the Mississippi?” And very, very silly.

“We’re seeing them shift their ranges. Some of these cold-blooded species are being found further north, compared to where they used to be found,” said Mike Heithaus, a marine biologist at Florida International University. “Bull sharks and their use of freshwater could change as the climate does.”

Heithaus said that even though the sharks’ behaviors may change, the risk of someone seeing one so far from the ocean is very small.

So, basically a complete bullsharkshit piece, meant to scare people who will most likely never make it past the first couple of paragraphs. Or even the headline.