As millions of Americans head for the coast this Fourth of July weekend, hundreds of killer sharks lurk in the waters of a summer vacation hotspot now ominously nicknamed ‘Great White Alley.’
This stretch of the Atlantic off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, also known as ‘Shark Alley,’ has become a seasonal gathering ground for great whites.
OCEARCH, a non-profit focused on shark research and ocean conservation, has tagged and tracked nearly 500 sharks over the last two decades. Since the start of June, they have been following at least nine great whites in Shark Alley.
Overall, researchers have discovered that hundreds, and by some estimates thousands, of great whites have returned to the waters near Cape Cod since 2015, which were deserted for decades due to heavy overfishing and targeted hunting in the mid-20th century.
In past summers, scientists have documented more than 100 new great white sharks entering Shark Alley, meaning several hundred likely return to the Cape Cod area annually to hunt for food before swimming south in the winter.
The stage was set for Cape Cod’s great white resurgence in the early 2000s, after a 1972 environmental protection law allowed gray seal populations to gradually rebound, replenishing a vital food source for sharks.
At the same time, other shark species have also migrated to the Northeast hunting grounds, including the dusky shark, another top predator that can grow to 13 feet in length and eats fish, rays and smaller sharks.
While these giant predators have already made their presence known at the start of July, researchers from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife found that Americans should expect to see even more in September and October as great whites chase seals living near the US-Canada border.
Major shark sightings on US East Coast (2025-2026)
OCEARCH has been tracking ‘Goodall’ over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. The white shark is over 13 feet in length and weighs nearly 1,400 pounds
Shark attacks in the US (2020-2025)
Even though Florida remains the shark bite capital of the US, this new shark hotspot in the Atlantic may already be having an impact on sightings in states that aren’t as used to watching out for the predators.
A massive nine-foot shark was spotted off the coast of Point Lookout in Hempstead, Nassau County, on July 2.
The New York City Parks Department also reported multiple bull shark sightings near Rockaway Beach and warned that the incidents could lead to intermittent closures.
Beachgoers have been urged to follow instructions from lifeguards and on-site staff.
However, the vast majority of shark attack incidents have taken place far away from Shark Alley, even as the area has seen a population explosion in recent years.
According to the Florida Museum’s International Shark Attack File, there have only been 13 shark attacks in waters near New York since 2020.
Florida still ranks in the top spot for shark bite incidents since 2020, with 101 attacks reported. However, none of those injuries turned fatal.
Hawaii ranked second during that time, with 32 biting incidents and four deaths, and California came in third, with 21 shark attacks and four deaths since 2020.
While researchers in Massachusetts and with OCEARCH have managed to tag only a handful of the sharks visiting Great White Alley, a 2023 study found the waters may be full of revitalized shark species.
The research, published in Marine Ecology Progress Series, estimated that 800 individual great white sharks visited the waters off Cape Cod between 2015 and 2018 alone.
Last summer, Chris Fischer, the founder of OCEARCH, told the Daily Mail: ‘I think there are far more white sharks, if we’re talking about large sharks, off our coast than people think there are.’
‘There is no way that we have captured more than a fraction of one percent. I think that you’re looking at tens of thousands of them, certainly 10,000 of them most of the time,’ Fischer added.
A bull shark and another, smaller shark were spotted in early July off the New York coast, triggering bans on swimming for beachgoers
While hammerhead sightings remain uncommon in Long Island, New York, experts say they have become more frequent during the summer months as ocean temperatures rise. Pictured is a hammerhead shark seen off the Long Island coast on Monday
OCEARCH has also been tracking ‘Brookes’ as it approaches Cape Cod in July 2026. The white shark is nearly nine feet in length and weighs more than 400 pounds
Despite growing concerns along the East Coast that sharks are moving closer to crowded shores due to warming ocean temperatures, there have been no shark attack incidents reported around Cape Cod in the last five years.
Only one person was killed by a shark in the Northeast, dying off the coast of Maine in 2020.
‘You’re getting to see what your great-granddaddy used to watch here at the beach. You just have never seen it in your life because we had compromised the system so badly. And now it’s back,’ Fischer explained.
