Shark Attacks in Maryland

Two coasts, many sharks, eleven entries in four centuries

Maryland's ocean frontage is one of the shortest on the East Coast, a single barrier island split by the Ocean City Inlet into the resort town to the north and the wild dunes of Assateague to the south. Behind it lies the Chesapeake, two hundred miles of drowned river valley whose lower reaches are salty enough for sharks and whose shallow, warm, food-rich flats are the most important nursery for the sandbar shark on the Atlantic coast. Every summer, pregnant sandbar sharks give birth in the lower bay and their pups spend their first years there; smooth dogfish and spiny dogfish move in and out with the seasons, sand tigers cruise the deeper channels and the occasional bull shark ranges far up toward the Potomac. Off the ocean beaches the same sandbar and dusky sharks patrol the bars, blacktips and spinners arrive in the warmest months, and fifty miles out, at the edge of the shelf, the Baltimore and Poor Man's canyons hold the makos, blues, threshers and tiger sharks that built Ocean City's reputation as a big-game port.

Against that abundance, eleven incidents in the database is a very small number, and the reasons are clear once the rows are read. The bay's dominant sharks are sandbar sharks, a placid species that takes crabs and small fish off the bottom and has almost no history of biting people; the bay's swimmers are few, because jellyfish and murky water keep most Marylanders on boats and docks rather than in the water; and the ocean beach, though crowded, is short. The people who do get hurt are disproportionately those who go looking for sharks: anglers, seine fishers and, in one case, an aquarist. Take those out and the unprovoked record for Maryland is seven entries in 386 years, with the last death in 1906.

The 1640 entry deserves a word of its own. It is the earliest incident for the United States in the entire SharkSider database, a wader killed in a tidal river on 15 August of that year, only six years after the colony was founded. It names no species and no river more precisely than that, but it is a reminder that the Chesapeake's sharks were here long before its beaches.

Where Maryland's eleven incidents happened

Every Maryland row names a place, and the map that emerges is unexpected: six of the eleven entries are inside Chesapeake Bay or its tidal rivers, not on the ocean. Worcester County, which holds the Atlantic beaches, has one county-tagged row, Ocean City in 2021, and Assateague adds two more without a county; Somerset County has the 1906 fatality in Tangier Sound. Nothing repeats: no beach, river or sound appears twice in the file.

• Ocean City, Worcester CountyThe state's resort beach has one row, and it is the clearest modern bite: at three in the afternoon on 2 August 2021 a 12-year-old girl swimming at Ocean City suffered lacerations and puncture wounds to the lower left leg from a blacktip shark. The 2002 mako case is labelled 100 miles off Ocean City, in 7,000 feet of water, an offshore fishing row rather than a beach one.
• Assateague Island: the State Park and the National SeashoreTwo rows on the undeveloped barrier beach south of the inlet. On 28 August 2014 a 33-year-old fishing at Assateague National Seashore had his foot lacerated by a shark he had hooked, a provoked case. On 17 May 2026 a surfer at Assateague State Park received a bite wound to the hand from what the record lists as an undetermined, possibly small, shark, the newest Maryland entry and the first on a surfer.
• Offshore: 100 miles off Ocean CityThe canyon grounds where Ocean City's tournament fleet fishes. Shortly after midnight on 9 July 2002 a 41-year-old captain shark fishing 100 miles out, in 7,000 feet of water, was caught in his line and pulled overboard by a hooked 400-pound mako and drowned. The database files it as a provoked incident and, because the shark did not bite him, not as a fatal attack.
• The Rhode River and North Beach, on the bay's western shoreTwo bay-side rows. On 3 September 1944 a 13-year-old swimming at North Beach had a laceration to the right lower leg. On 15 August 2018, at sunset, a man in the Rhode River, off the Chesapeake, had scratches to a calf; the row records no activity and no shark was identified. They are the only bay entries since 1906.
• Tangier Sound, Somerset CountyThe last fatal entry in Maryland. On 4 August 1906 a man fell overboard in Tangier Sound and was killed; the species column carries only the note that his remains were recovered five days later. Tangier Sound is the saltiest Maryland water in the bay and the heart of the sandbar shark nursery, but no other row has been logged there since.
• The Chester and Patapsco rivers and "a tidal river", 1640 to 1873The three pre-1900 rows are all rivers. On 15 August 1640 a man wading in a tidal river was killed, the oldest American entry in the SharkSider file. On 31 August 1848 a 15-year-old swimming in the Patapsco River had his left leg severely bitten. On 28 July 1873 a seine fisher in the Chester River was bitten on the leg by a netted shark and had the lower leg amputated, a provoked case. None of the three names a species.
• The Baltimore Aquarium, 16 April 1991One entry happened indoors: at five to ten in the morning a senior aquarist diving in a tank received a minor injury from a captive seven-foot female shark, a provoked case that has nothing to do with the state's coast but sits in the file all the same.

The complete Maryland record

The figures, the decade chart and the table below are generated from the SharkSider incident database, which pools the International Shark Attack File, the Global Shark Attack File and verified local reports and is updated weekly. Maryland has 11 rows, all shown in a single table, and the Place column names a river, sound, beach or distance offshore for each of them. Three entries are older than 1900, from 1640, 1848 and 1873, and are counted in the totals but not in the decade chart, which begins at 1900 and therefore shows eight incidents. Fatal rows are marked in red.

• Recorded incidents11 (8 since 1900)
• Fatal2
• Years covered1640–2026
• Since 20005 incidents, 0 fatal
• Most common activitySwimming & wading
• Most identified sharkBlacktip shark

The most recent incidents

• 17 May 2026 · Assateague State Park, MarylandSurfing — Bite wound to the handShark: Undetermined possibly a small shark · not fatal
• 2 August 2021 · Ocean City, Worcester County, MarylandSwimming — Lacerations and puncture wounds to lower left legShark: Blacktip shark · not fatal
• 15 August 2018 · Rhode River, Chesapeake Bay, MarylandActivity not stated — Scratches to calfShark not identified · not fatal
• 28 August 2014 · Assateague National Seashore, MarylandFishing — Lacerations to foot by hooked shark provoked incidentShark not identified · not fatal
• 9 July 2002 · 100 miles off Ocean City, Maryland, in 7000' of water, MarylandShark fishing — Drowned when caught in line and pulled overboard by hooked shark provoked incidentShark: Mako shark, 400-lb · not fatal
• 16 April 1991 · Baltimore Aquarium, MarylandDiving — Minor injury by captive shark provoked incidentShark: 7' female shark · not fatal

Every recorded incident

This is a table that needs careful reading. First, the outcome column follows the database's rule that a case is fatal only when the shark caused the death. The 2002 entry, in which a fisher drowned after a hooked mako pulled him overboard, is therefore shown as survived, and the fatal count of two does not include him; he died, but of drowning during a provoked incident, and the builder reports the classification rather than the tragedy. Second, four rows are provoked: the 1873 seine fisher whose leg was bitten by a netted shark and later amputated, the 1991 aquarist injured by a captive shark, the 2002 mako case and the 2014 fisher cut by a hooked shark. Third, the 1906 row has a note where a species should be, remains recovered five days later, because the shark was never identified; and the automatic activity grouping in the summary files that fell-overboard entry under boards beside the 2026 surfer, so read it as a boat case alongside the fishing rows. Fourth, the 2018 entry has no activity recorded and only scratches to a calf at sunset, with no shark identified. Only two rows name a species, the blacktip of 2021 and the mako of 2002, which is why the summary lists the blacktip as the most identified shark on the strength of a single case; the 2026 row says only undetermined, possibly a small shark. The record carries ages for five people and a time of day for four; nothing beyond what it holds has been added here.

Which sharks appear in the Maryland file, and which do not

Two entries identify a shark and both point away from the species that dominates Maryland's water; the newest row, the 2026 hand bite at Assateague, is recorded only as undetermined, possibly a small shark.

Blacktip shark. The clearest unprovoked beach bite of the modern era, lacerations and puncture wounds to the lower left leg of a 12-year-old swimmer at Ocean City on 2 August 2021, is attributed to a blacktip. Blacktips reach Maryland only in the warmest weeks of summer, when they follow menhaden and mullet into the surf, and the quick single bite in this entry is their signature across the whole East Coast.

Shortfin mako. The 400-pound mako of July 2002 never bit anyone; it was hooked, and the line dragged the captain overboard to his death. The shortfin mako is the prize of the Ocean City tournament fleet and the fastest shark in the sea, and this entry is a reminder that the danger in shark fishing is the fishing, not the teeth.

Sandbar shark. Absent from the record, and that absence is the most telling fact on the page. The sandbar shark is by far the most numerous shark in the Chesapeake and off the ocean beaches, present in thousands every summer, and it has never been implicated in a Maryland bite. It is a bottom feeder with a cautious disposition, and it is now protected from harvest along the coast.

Sand tiger, dusky and the offshore species. Sand tigers, with their alarming teeth and docile habits, share the lower bay and the inlet with dusky sharks; neither is named in any row. Blue sharks, threshers and tiger sharks are canyon animals that swimmers never meet, and the great white shark, though tagged individuals pass Maryland every spring and autumn on their migration between Florida and New England, has never been recorded in a Maryland incident. The full list of sharks in Maryland covers every species with a state record.

Safety lessons from eleven rows

A record this small still has a shape, and the shape is unusual: nearly half of Maryland's entries involve people handling sharks on purpose. The rules follow from that.

• Treat a hooked or netted shark as the most dangerous shark in Maryland. The 1873 amputation, the 2002 drowning and the 2014 foot laceration all came from sharks on a line or in a net. Keep hands and feet clear of the mouth, never wrap line around a limb, and cut the leader on anything large rather than trying to boat it.
• On the ocean beach, watch for bait in the surf in late July and August. Six of the eleven entries fall in August and two more in July; the 2026 surfer bite at Assateague, in mid-May, is the only warm-season outlier. August is when blacktips and spinners are inshore and when the 2021 Ocean City bite happened. Leave the water if menhaden are being chased or birds are working close to shore.
• Avoid dusk. The 2018 scratches were at sunset; low light is when coastal sharks feed and when a swimmer's foot is hardest to tell from a fish.
• Swim at lifeguarded stretches of Ocean City and Assateague rather than by the inlet, where current and bait concentrate sharks.
• In the bay, the risks are jellyfish, currents and boat traffic, not sandbar sharks. Bull sharks are rare enough that no Maryland entry has ever named one.

Our guide on how to survive a shark attack covers the response to a bite: leave the water, control bleeding with pressure or a tourniquet, and get emergency help. On this record that has been enough in every case for more than a century.

Maryland in the US and world picture

The International Shark Attack File confirms roughly 60 to 80 unprovoked bites worldwide in a normal year, and the United States supplies about half of them, almost all in Florida, Hawaii, the Carolinas and California. Maryland contributes a bite perhaps once a decade. In the same database its neighbours tell the same mid-Atlantic story with more rows: Delaware has 8 entries and no death, Virginia 19 with 5 fatal, and New Jersey 57 with 6, while North Carolina, where the warm water and the crowds begin, jumps to 123. Within the United States record Maryland is among the quietest coastal states, and unusual in that its provoked cases outnumber its unprovoked beach bites in the modern era.

Attack records on the neighbouring coasts

The Delmarva Peninsula is shared with Delaware to the north and Virginia to the south, whose portion of the Chesapeake holds most of the bay's sharks; New Jersey and North Carolina bracket the region. For the sharks rather than the incidents, see sharks in Maryland. For the rest of the country and the world, start at the shark attacks overview.

Written and reviewed by

SharkSider Editorial Team

A small team focused on researching sharks and making marine biology easy to understand. Every page is reviewed against current species records and the SharkSider attack database, and updated when new incidents or research appear.

Published September 16, 2023 · Last updated September 22, 2026 · 11 records for Maryland in the SharkSider attack database (2 fatal), updated weekly.