A terrifying new study has revealed that sharks enjoy spending time around busy city beaches.

It comes after a ground-breaking amount of shark sightings and attacks hit New York and other East Coast states this year.

Researchers at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science said the predators want to "be where the people are".

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Neil Hammerschlag, research and conservation program director, told Reuters: “We were surprised to find that the sharks we tracked spent so much time near the lights and sounds of the busy city — often close to shore — no matter the time of day.

“We really thought they would, because studies of big land predators have found that wolves and bears and kind of the big land carnivores tend to avoid being around big cities."

Scientists decided to monitor shark movement using a method named passive acoustic telemetry, reports New York Post.

They outfitted bull, nurse and great hammerhead sharks with transmitters that emit ultrasonic sounds.

Researchers connected them to subaquatic “listening stations” off the coast of Miami and the Florida Keys, which collected information of the sharks’ activity.

The transmitters enabled researchers to learn that sharks were “spending quite a lot of time close to what we call like urban areas”.

“These sharks were cruising up and down the coastline in areas that, you know, there are people that bathe in the ocean,” they added.

“And we saw that, you know, even some aerial drone footage we saw of people out, you know, on Miami Beach and, unknown to them, there were sharks swimming around them, which is pretty crazy.”

Scientists say it is likely that the sea beasts have become acclimated to urban sights and sounds.

Hammerschlag believes the findings should reassure members of the public.

He said: "Although this might make you a bit nervous, to me it just proves the point that sharks, you know, really don’t want to bite people, and that, in fact, sharks really tolerate people and tend to avoid them.

“But it just shows that just humans are not on the menu when it comes to sharks.”

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