DETROIT – A viral social media post claiming two great white sharks are headed for the Great Lakes is making the rounds and it’s completely false.
Here’s why the science just doesn’t add up.
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Water too cold, too fresh
The most obvious one: the Great Lakes are freshwater. Sharks need saltwater to survive. That basic biological reality alone is enough to debunk the claim. C’mon, what are we doing here?
Temperature is another problem. The Great Lakes run cold, making them inhospitable to most shark species, including great whites.
Greenland sharks can handle the cold, but they live for hundreds of years. I think they have better things to do than to visit Ohio.
What about bull sharks?
Some sharks, like bull sharks, can regulate salt in their systems and tolerate freshwater for periods of time, but they still require saltwater to survive long-term.
The claim that “some sharks can swim in freshwater” is partially true, but it doesn’t apply to great whites, and it doesn’t mean any shark could simply take up residence in the Great Lakes.
Plus, I don’t know if San Jose is open to trades.
Getting here would be nearly impossible
Even if a great white wanted to reach Lake Erie from the Atlantic Ocean, the journey would be a logistical nightmare. The shark would need to travel roughly 1,000 miles and pass through 15 separate locks, or, alternatively, clear eight locks and then leap up Niagara Falls like a coked-up salmon.
Niagara Falls drops 167 feet. Great white sharks can leap about 16 feet out of the water. They can dunk, sure, but they can’t clear Niagara.
If it were real, you’d know
If a great white shark were actually making its way toward the Great Lakes, you would not learn about it through an AI-generated social media post.
Our newsroom would never shut up about it. It would be my favorite thing. We would have a livestream of the shark’s progress.
Maybe once we get a PWHL team, they would be more likely to visit.
Fingers crossed.