A new study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may show a reversal in shark populations in the North Atlantic Ocean. The report, which is the most comprehensive ever on seasonal distribution patterns and historic trends in abundance of great white sharks in the North Atlantic Ocean, shows a boom in population, the first of such in nearly 20 years.

Scientists from NOAA Fisheries and colleagues added recent unpublished records to previously published data in order to depict a broad picture of 649 confirmed great white shark records obtained between 1800 and 2010, the largest great white shark dataset ever compiled for the region.

“White sharks in the Northwest Atlantic are like a big jigsaw puzzle, where each year we are given only a handful of pieces,” said Tobey Curtis, a shark researcher at NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office in Gloucester, Mass. and lead author of the study. “After decades of effort by a lot of researchers, we finally have enough puzzle pieces for a picture to emerge on distribution and abundance patterns. We are pleased to see signs of population recovery.”

Great white shark populations began to decline in the 1970s and 1980s, likely due to expanding commercial and recreational shark fisheries. In 1977 the species gained protected status, yet that was not enough action to mitigate the plummeting population numbers.

However, from the early 1990s onward, abundance increased thanks to the U.S. government implementing management measures; in 1993, the U.S. began to monitor and manage its shark fisheries, and in 1997 a ban on both commercial and recreational shark harvesting was decreed.

While the overall distribution of great white sharks is very broad, ranging from Newfoundland to the British Virgin Islands and from the Grand Banks to the Gulf of Mexico as far west as the Texas coast, 90 percent of the animals recorded in this study were found along the East Coast roughly between the Florida Keys and northern Caribbean Sea to Nova Scotia, Canada. The center of the distribution is in southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic Bight, where 66 percent of the shark sightings occurred.

The report estimates the current great white shark population in the North Atlantic Ocean to be around 2,000, which researchers agree seems to be a healthy and stable number for the species. However, it should be noted that the current population represents only 69 percent of the peak population of great white sharks observed during the 1960s.