THIS summer's uptick in shark attacks and sightings is the "greatest gift" this generation will give to our grandkids, a shark expert has said.

Chris Fischer, founder of the nonprofit research group OCEARCH, has said The Sun decades of conservation efforts "collided" during the pandemic and created the liveliest oceanic ecosystem since the 1950s.

The byproduct is more shark sightings close to the shores and more shark bites in shallow waters; although most of them are what he referred to as "ankle biters."

"This is not a mystery. This is not some sort of radical climate change situation. The ocean is returning to what it is supposed to be," Fischer told The Sun in an exclusive interview.

"It's just that none of us have been alive long enough to have seen the abundance and teeming life in the ocean that we have now, which is really a tremendous success story."

FOUR MOVES THAT SAVED THE SHARKS

Since 1970, the global abundance of sharks declined 71 percent, according to a 2021 study in the scientific journal Nature.

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The number could've been as high as 90 percent in extreme cases, according to OCEARCH's Chief Scientist Dr Bob Hueter.

Not coincidentally, the blockbuster movie Jaws was released in the mid '70s, and shark fin soup was a popular cuisine in Asia at the time that required the brutal massacre of sharks, Fischer said.

"After Jaws, everyone went out and was trying to catch or kill every shark they could," he said.

"And because of a skyrocketing demand for shark fin soup, people were capturing sharks, cutting off their fins and dumping the sharks' bodies back in the water so they couldn't swim."

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Without the "balance keepers" of the ocean, the ecosystem began to collapse until the government took its first major conservation step with the enactment of the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The law set up a moratorium on taking and importing marine mammals, including their parts and products.

In the early 1990s, there was a concerted effort by the federal government to protect the sharks, which Fischer said reached "historically low percentages."

Then, about 30 years ago, a restriction on inshore drift gillnets for recreational fishing – which are miles-long walls of netting that hang in the water – went into effect.

The final piece of the conservation puzzle came less than 10 years ago in New York and New Jersey with protections against overfishing menhaden (also known as bunker), which are the main food source for sharks.

The two states made it illegal to fish menhaden in state waters, which is defined as three miles from the shore.

That created huge schools, or clouds, of menhaden that came up into the New York Harbor, Fischer said.

"That's why you've had whales in New York Harbor and tuna and all these other species returning because the bait is returning," he said.

These four big moves then "collided" during the pandemic, which essentially forced beaches to close for two summers.

"So people might have a little gap in their experience with the ocean during Covid," Fischer said, "and then they've come back to the beach a couple of years later and haven't seen what's been building.

"Especially the menhaden resurgence was really happening during Covid."

SHARKS OFF LONG ISLAND SHORES

And since New York and New Jersey don't allow menhaden fishing in state waters, clouds of these bait fish swarm near the shores and lure predators, like sharks.

They hunt their darting prey by "crowding," which is when sharks push menhaden into shallow waters near land to prevent them from diving down or moving to the side.

That's why there have been about a half dozen shark sightings off the coast of Long Island, including a juvenile great white that washed ashore Thursday morning, Fischer said.

"What you're seeing happen right now off the shores of Long Island is the result of decades of conservation work and the recovery of the ocean really starting to succeed," he said.

"We are seeing the return of the Atlantic Ocean into one of the great wild oceans. This is probably one of the greatest management success stories in the world right now."

SHARK THAT WASHED UP ON LONG ISLAND

There was concern in the northeast – especially lower New York – when a great white shark washed up on the shores of Long Island on Thursday.

Fischer said it's nothing to worry about.

"If I had to guess, I would say it was probably caught by a recreational or commercial fisherman and released, and it just did not go well," Fischer said. "So the shark didn't make it. Nothing to be alarmed about."

The shark that washed up on the shore is not the typical size of a white shark that spends his time in the New York/New Jersey area by what OCEARCH has seen during their studies, he said.

"When we came there in 2016 and 2017, we defined the nursery and tagged about 20 baby white sharks," OCEARCH's founder said.

"They were about four to five and a half feet long right there, and once they're about three, four years old they leave and don't come back. They move past that area."

The shark that was in the picture was bigger and likely an eight-foot juvenile on his way north.

"That shark was most likely migrating north, further north, but stopped in to maybe grab a snack on the way and got caught and released. And it didn't make it that would be my guess," Fischer said.

He said that's likely not the shark involved in the previous confirmed attacks off the Long Island coast.

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