Are we seeing more sharks this season than usual?

KURE BEACH, NC (WWAY) — There have been three shark bites reported on our coast just this month, and one just Sunday night, to an eight-year-old boy in Bald Head Island.

It’s only June, so people are asking—are these numbers higher than normal?

Caller: “Hi. I’m on Bald Head Island and someone got bit by a shark.”
Dispatcher: “Was he bitten on the same leg twice?”
Caller: “Yup, same leg twice.”
Dispatcher: “Upper and lower?”
Caller: “Yup, upper and lower.'”

These frantic calls to 911 seem to be more common the past few weeks.

“You say the word ‘attack’ and people get scared, but the reality is that usually it’s an incidental or accident encounter,” Fort Fisher Aquarium’s Julie Johnson said. “They mistake somebody for something that they might want to eat and realize it’s not.”

Johnson says sharks are usually not seeking out people. She says that as the water warms up, fish tend to swim closer to shore, drawing hungry sharks along with them.

Johnson says sharks are just a way of the water. She says the amount of reported shark bites this season is not outrageous.

“It’s their habitat,” she said. “Their home.”

Johnson says it’s about being aware and taking precautions.

“Including time of day you’re swimming. sharks are more active in dusk and evening,” she said.” “Jewelry. It’s shiny. It reflects in the water. To a shark, that might look like a fish scale.”

In this recent bite, a Bald Head Island spokesperson says the child had puncture wounds to the leg.

Dispatcher: “If it bleeds through the towel that you all have on those two wounds, do not lift them up to look. I need you to put more towels on top of them, and just continue to hold firm, steady pressure.”

The child was taken to a hospital on the mainland with reportedly minimal injuries.

Johnson says that globally, the shark population is actually going down.

She says that as we learn more about them and tag them, it may seem like we are seeing more.