The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists published a study on Great White Sharks this month in the journal PLOS ONE that states that these sharks have been increasing in number since the year 2000 in the western North Atlantic.

image via Twitter from USAToday

Scientists involved in the study believe the increase in population to be a direct effect of conservation efforts and a larger abundance of prey. The federal 1997 act is a conservation effort that made the hunting of great whites illegal via Yahoo. The International Union for Conservation of Nature however believes they are still vulnerable.

While the 1975 production of jaws gave the great white a lot of notoriety, they are actually not as dangerous to humans as one might think. There have only been 106 unprovoked white shark attacks since 1916 — only 13 of them fatal according to IndianExpress.

Great white’s numbers say a steady decline in the western North Atlantic from the early 1960s to the 1980s. Today their population is only 31 percent down from its historical high estimate in 1961. This could be somewhere in between 3,000 to 5,000 animals.

James Sulikowski, a professor of marine science at the University of New England in Portland, adamantly stated, “We need these sharks in our waters.”