It is so cold in the United States right now that sharks are dying and turtles are cold-stunned.

Sharks are washing up on a beach in Massachusetts frozen completely solid amid a record-breaking cold snap in the United States.

This shark washed up on a snowy beach off Cape Cod Bay today.

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy said it had found three dead thresher sharks stranded on the shore of the Cape Cod Bay in Brewster, south of Boston, in the last three days.

The first two were "likely stranded due to cold shock" it said. The third was frozen solid.

Read the ABC News story by Alle McMahon - “It is so cold in the United States right now that sharks are dying and turtles are cold-stunned.”

Global warming explains increase in shark encounters

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eports of sharks and in some instances actual attacks seemed a common occurrence during a recent Queensland visit.

Sharks and surfers - global warming
explains the increase in encounters.

The whole “shark thing” reached something of a fever pitch when Australian surfer, Mick Fanning, was attacked in mid-July during a world surfing tour final in South Africa. Fanning was not injured and is back surfing.

Oceanographers and climatologists can explain why there is an increase in number of instances of humans and sharks encountering each other, sometimes with a deadly outcome, mostly for those people who have ventured into shark’s environment.

So what is happening? – Ocean temperatures are being directly influenced by global warming and so as those temperatures rise, the feed stocks the sharks depend upon seek cooler waters and they are generally found closer to the shores, in the areas mostly favoured by surfers and swimmers.

Subsequently the paths of sharks and people now cross far more frequently, often with a fatal or rather serious outcome for the human.
 

Beyond that, the other complicating factor points to commercial fishing for as we catch and kill more of the fish that was once on the shark’s menu, the predator is forced to look further afield for its food and humans, being largely defenceless in the water, look and are pretty tasty.