Experts say the presence of these sharks is not a cause for concern for beachgoers.
Florida has never recorded a bite from a great white shark, according to the International Shark Attack File.
An increase in white shark populations is considered a positive sign for ocean conservation efforts.
At least five white sharks are loitering off Florida’s coast this month as spring break attracts college students and families to the state’s sandy beaches.
And while Florida consistently ranks tops in the U.S. for shark bites, experts say there is no cause for concern over the pelagic beasts perusing the subtropical waters near the Sunshine State.
No one has ever been bitten by a great white shark in Florida, according to the International Shark Attack File, and there’s less to attract them to Florida’s shallow waters where people wade and swim. New England and California are more likely to see white sharks in closer proximity to humans because of the plethora of prey in the water, including seals.
But white sharks are known for wintering around Florida and in the Gulf, said Catherine Macdonald, director of the University of Miami’s Shark Research and Conservation Program in the Rosenstiel School.
“We know that especially juvenile white sharks don’t love icy winters in the northeast, and we see them heading this way and many of them will spend the winter in the Gulf,” Macdonald said in a January interview. “The Gulf offers great feeding habitat that is a very comfortable temperature.”
This month the shark research group OCEARCH has tracked five sharks around Florida from the Treasure Coast to the northern Gulf of Mexico, now referred to as the Gulf of America by the U.S. government.
Where are the white sharks near Florida?
On March 4, a nearly 9-foot female white shark named Brookes was about five miles east of Key Biscayne. Three days later, Brookes was four miles south of Marathon in the Florida Keys.
Other white sharks near Florida include Jason, a 9-foot male that surfaced March 7 south of Cudjoe Key in the Florida Straits, 12- foot Webster, 10-foot Bella and Ernst, a 12-foot female who surfaced March 6 south of the Panhandle’s Apalachicola.
Farther away from Florida but still in the Gulf are Penny, Goodall and Ripple, all of whom last surfaced long enough to be tracked between Feb. 23 and March 8.
“Every few years people reach out to me and say there are so many more sharks at beaches than there used to be and I’m like, ‘Well, everyone has a cell phone now,’” Macdonald said.
Still, it’s possible there are a few more white sharks around Florida than there were a decade ago because of successful conservation efforts.
“If anything, that is a great sign for ocean conservation,” Macdonald said. “It’s something we should celebrate, not be worried about.”
Joe Miguez, manager of the International Shark Attack File, agrees that sharks don’t see humans as food or there wouldn’t be fewer than 100 shark bites in general per year.
“There would be thousands,” Miguez said in a January interview. “It’s simply that we are not on the menu.”
The annual tally of shark bites, released Feb. 18 by the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History, found there were 65 unprovoked shark bites worldwide in 2025. That’s slightly less than the 10-year-average of 72 bites.
Of the 25 unprovoked bites registered in the U.S., 11 occurred in Florida, including six in Volusia County, one in Miami-Dade County and two each in Broward and Lee counties.
Despite the country’s high ranking, only one person was killed by a shark in the U.S. last year in an unprovoked incident.
Erica Fox, 55, had a fatal encounter with a white shark in December while swimming near the south end of California’s Monterey Bay.
Florida’s highest ranking counties for shark bites
While Palm Beach County had no bites recorded in 2025, it ranks third highest overall in the shark bite database with 83 recorded incidents in records that go back to the 1500s. That’s behind Volusia County’s 365 bites and Brevard County’s total of 159 bites.
Lexington Bohn, a lifeguard for the Town of Palm Beach, said sharks are of little worry to him when he thinks about spring break crowds. Rip currents and people getting pushed into rock jetties by heavy surf rank much higher than sharks.
“None at all. I am not concerned at all about sharks,” Bohn said. “Our water is so clear, sharks know what they are getting into and they aren’t a concern.”
Volusia County consistently ranks high for shark bites because the Halifax River and Indian River North empty into the Ponce Inlet, combining murky, baitfish-rich water with one of Florida’s most heralded surf spots. A University of Florida article says the area is also a breeding ground for blacktip sharks.
OCEARCH said in a statement that about 62% of the sharks it has tagged in the Atlantic off Canada and Massachusetts will spend winter in the Gulf or Straits of Florida.
It has notified local authorities on a couple of occasions when it felt a shark had strayed close to a beach, but never in the Gulf, where they mostly hang out around the offshore shelf far from recreational beaches.
On March 7, OCEARCH posted to social media about a white shark named Cayo, that was near a beach in North Carolina.
The post said, “Be advised” and included a map of the shark’s location.
“Tagging data is incredibly important and it’s cool that people can see it,” Miguez said about the white shark migration to the Gulf. “But more than likely this is not a new phenomenon.”
