Research group confirms white shark nursery off Long Island

BOSTON — A privately funded great white shark research group has confirmed the waters off Long Island’s Montauk Point are a “nursery,” a first in the study of great whites in the northwest Atlantic Ocean.

But the OCEARCH expedition is generating more than just scientific intrigue as it works off Long Island and Nantucket.

The Park City, Utah-based organization has also been embroiled in a public spat with shark researchers in Massachusetts. They accuse OCEARCH of encroaching into state waters without a permit and possibly compromising the state’s own white shark research with its tactics.

OCEARCH founder Chris Fischer maintains his team has legally remained in federal waters off Nantucket and that there’s “no scientific basis” for the concerns over this team’s methods.