July 31, 2026 — New Jersey’s back bays, those lush wetlands that sit between the barrier island beach towns and the mainland, are home to unknown numbers of baby sharks that feast on the American eel, crabs and small fish that thrive in the coastal salt marshes. Giving birth to litters in those food-rich shallow waters like Little Egg Harbor is just about all the maternal care given to the shark pups by their mothers, who swim back out to the Atlantic Ocean soon afterwards.
The tiger shark, the sandbar shark and the smooth dogfish return each summer to the Jersey coast to give birth between June and July, utilizing the safety of shallow waters that are free from predators that would devour their newborns. Although the smooth dogfish can grow to 3 feet long, the babies are no larger than 12 inches at birth and litters range in size from four to 20 pups. The dogfish are benthic feeders, meaning they forage along the bottom of the marsh.
“We all have our favorite shore towns,” said Adrianna Zito-Livingston, an ecologist who works as the climate adaptation project manager for the New Jersey Nature Conservancy. “We come back year after year. The sharks are doing the same thing.”
The Nature Conservancy is working with Monmouth University to research the health of the salt marshes that have become eroded due to the impacts of climate change. As part of that work, researchers like Zito-Livingston are tagging the sharks with acoustic trackers that are then monitored by listening stations placed along the Jersey coast. She said the sharks provide a good indication of the health of the salt marshes.
“In a lot of ways, sharks are a canary in the coal mine,” she said. “They’re top predators and healthy sharks with a good distribution are indicative of healthy, diverse ecosystems.”