Shark Attacks In N.J., Elsewhere More Likely Than Ever In 2016, Experts Say [VIDEO]

Shark attacks are more likely than ever to happen in New Jersey and elsewhere this summer, and experts say 2016 could be a record year.

These shark experts say the various reports of sharks showing up on New Jersey Shore beaches over the last two years - to paraphrase a line from the movie "Jaws" - were no mere accidents.

Marie Levine, executive director of the Shark Research Institute in Princeton, said the expanding population is getting ever so close to the shark world - particularly fisherman and surfers.

"We've had surfers land right in front of sharks, and sharks don't swim backwards," she said.

Levine said more needs to be done to separate fishing and recreation at New Jersey beaches because fishing is drawing sharks into swimming waters.

"It's common sense: When it comes to setting up guarded beaches, fishing has to be really separate from swimming beaches," she said.

Indeed, shark sightings led to a number of beaches closing last year at the Jersey Shore as people caught the incidents on video.

• WATCH: Another Shark Sighting Halts Swimming At Jersey Shore Beach
• Shark Sighting Halts Swimming At Jersey Shore Beach

Rich Fernicola, a physician who helps with shark research at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, said population, global warning and growing tourism are all responsible for the greater risk of attacks.

He pointed to a remark from what he considers the leading shark expert in America predicting a worldwide increase this year in attacks, surpassing last year's record number.

"We should have more bites this year than last," George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, said in a Reuters interview, noting that, in 2015, there were 98 shark attacks, including six fatalities.

Fernicola said Burgess's remark is "statistically valid," particularly for warmer-weather beaches from the Carolinas to Florida. But the climate change is encouraging more people to swim, and more sharks to come to New Jersey, too, he said.

"There are body boards, kayaks, paddle boards - people are using the ocean more than we've ever seen," Fernicola said.

Fernicola said the shark population is likely expanding, too, and climate change helps increase the metabolism of sharks.

Indeed, last year's discovery of a juvenile great white shark could help also explain why there have been an increase in shark sightings off the Jersey Shore recently, the researchers say.

It could be the beginnings of a shark habitat that oceanographers say they’ve seen develop elsewhere in the United States - and eventually led to an increase in sightings.

"There's nothing wrong with a warning for people to be more vigilant, Fernicola said.

The last fatal shark attack in New Jersey was in 1916, which served as inspiration for "Jaws." In New Jersey, there have only been 15 shark attacks over the past 100 years, but 3 of them have happened in the past decade - the most recent in November 2013 in Bay Head, according to the Shark Research Institute.