Sharks hang around Myrtle Beach area. Where are they going?

An influx of sharks has started to pass through the Myrtle Beach area.

Ocearch, a research nonprofit tracking 95 white sharks near South Carolina, showed about a dozen of sharks more than 10 to 15 miles off the coast of Myrtle Beach.

They’re passing through on the way to Cape Cod and the Atlantic Canada area as the ocean warms for the summer.

This is the peak overwintering period for sharks, Ocearch Senior Data Scientist John Tyminski said.

Overwintering is the period of time animals such as sharks will spend in warmer climates usually from Dec. 1 to May 15.

Myrtle Beach and the Outer Banks are hot spots for sharks for overwintering before sharks head north until fall.

“Sometime after about May 15, white sharks start doing this northward migration. Often they will stage off of the Outer Banks of North Carolina,” Tyminski said. “They sort of pause there for a little bit, feeding in some cases.”

Contender, the more than 1,500-pound shark that was seen around Myrtle Beach this summer, was last pinged around the Outer Banks at 5 p.m. on June 7.

He’s eating around the Outer Banks before swimming up to Cape Cod for fatty meals such as seals until mid-October, Tyminski theorized.

“All these, these migratory changes I just described, the biggest cue for them is water temperature,” Tyminski said. “That’s what’s going to make them get out of Atlantic Canada when it gets too cold in the fall, and that’s what’s going to get them on the move from the Southeast when it gets too warm.”

Five people have been bitten by sharks in the Myrtle Beach area. All of those incidents occurred during sharks’ overwintering period, according to the Shark Research Institute.

All suffered non-life-threatening or minor injuries.

Earlier in the summer, a swimmer off the coast of Sunset Beach was bitten by a shark who suffered a gash to his left leg, according to the SRI.

This story was originally published June 11, 2025 at 5:00 AM.