Listen to this article
Estimated 5 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
At a new field station on an island off Nova Scotia’s South Shore, researchers are trying to fill in the gaps about white sharks off Nova Scotia.
From the Tancook Islands Marine Field Station on Big Tancook Island, a team of a dozen graduate and undergraduate students use an array of tracking technologies to monitor white shark movement. The team is led by Nigel Hussey, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Windsor in Ontario.
Last year, in their first year of operations, they tagged 16 white sharks off the coast of Nova Scotia. The 2026 tagging expedition launches this weekend.
The field station has also launched their own tracker, where the public can follow the sharks tagged by the field station in 2025, plus any of the sharks they tag in 2026.
But the station’s founder said that work is complicated by Canada’s permitting system for working with the animals.
“I think at the moment we don’t have the capacity … set up to deal with white sharks in Atlantic Canada,” Hussey said. “We need to quite quickly … get those organizations in place.”
The Tancook Islands Marine Field Station was started by Hussey and his wife, Anna, after Hussey joined a tagging expedition run by the group Ocearch in Atlantic Canada in 2018.
At the time, Hussey thought it was unlikely they’d find enough sharks to make the expedition worthwhile. Though there had been records of white sharks in Atlantic Canadian waters going back over a century, they were rare.
“I said at the time, ‘You know, this is like finding a needle in the haystack,’” said Hussey. “But of course I was proved completely wrong.”
That sparked an idea to establish a research base in Nova Scotia from which to study the animals while they are in the region.
Hussey said at the moment, unknowns include whether there are migration corridors, where sharks congregate, their population size and their impact on the ecosystem.
The field station seeks to answer these questions with different types of tags, including satellite tags.
Using a new satellite system launched last summer, Hussey said these methods are starting to provide a better picture of white shark movement. With this new data, he expects that by the end of the summer, they’ll be able to provide a preliminary assessment of white shark hot spots in Atlantic Canada.
‘It creates challenges’
Yet Hussey said the permitting system makes it challenging to undertake this work.
Because white sharks are listed federally as an endangered species, scientists require a special permit from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to work with the animals.
Permits have to be applied for annually, and in the weeks leading up to his 2026 expedition, the permit had yet to arrive.
“It creates challenges on the logistics side,” he said.
Hussey is also concerned with the way permits cover people doing different activities, including commercial cage diving, wildlife documentary production and strictly scientific research.
“This one-size-fits-all doesn’t work because the actual needs for the permits are extremely different.”
A new field station on Nova Scotia’s Big Tancook Island is helping track Atlantic Canada’s white shark population. The CBC’s Moira Donovan visited the remote station to learn more.
As an example, Hussey cites a permit condition that limits scientific research to the open ocean — even though white sharks generally hang out closer to shore.
“The animals are just not out there, so that boundary line is very complicated on efficiency and logistics.”
Hussey said these limitations within the permits make it complicated to establish the kind of long-term monitoring program that’s needed to understand white sharks in Atlantic Canada.
In a statement, DFO spokesperson Christine Lyons said the department assesses applications on a case-by-case basis and that decisions are normally made within 90 days.
Lyons said the department has “applied and communicated clear and consistent criteria for how and where permitted White Shark research activities can occur based on the best available information and using a precautionary approach.”
Field station ‘a blessing’ for Tancook
When they do have their permits in place, Hussey said the station can help nurture the next generation of scientists — but he hopes the benefits won’t stop there.
David Baker, a lifelong lobster fisherman and fourth-generation Tancook resident, has been helping the field research team set out their network of nearly 80 acoustic receivers along the coast in the summer and pick them up in the fall.
Baker said having the field station has been “a blessing” for the community, and a boon for the wharf, where the number of fishermen has declined over the years.
“There’s a lot more [sharks] here than what we thought,” he said. “You’ve got to have the science to go along with it and I’m just happy to be a small part of that.”
Hussey said they plan to expand the field station by opening an education centre where the public can learn more about sharks. Long term, that could also play a role in the island’s future.
“The whole point was that this is part of the community,” he said. “It’s a way we evolve here on the islands and can potentially help support economic growth in the future.”
MORE TOP STORIES
