Scientists spot ‘nursery’ of baby great white sharks off NYC’s coast in Jaws-dropping event

You might not want to be around these babies when they’re teething.

Biologists have camera-tagged the first baby great white shark — which they named Liberty — in a “nursery” of maneaters off the coast of New York City.

It’s the focus of a National Geographic episode called “Baby Sharks in the City,” streaming July 8 on Disney+ and Hulu and July 9 on Nat Geo, part of Sharkfest programming that starts June 30.

The shark daycare center is located in the New York Bight, a huge ocean triangle formed by Cape May, NJ; Montauk Point, LI, and NYC.

Capt. Greg Metzger, who heads the South Fork Natural Museum History Museum on Long Island, said scientists have been studying baby white sharks in New York since the 1960s, but it was only in the past decade that the existence of the “nursery” was confirmed.

Dr. Tobey Curtis, a shark scientist with NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, said the 100-foot-deep “nursery” the team studied during the two-week expedition last year likely produces hundreds of great whites each year.

‘Aggressive f—ing’ shark repeatedly rams jet ski in Florida

“The babies are on their own from day one. Sharks don’t have parental care at all,” Curtis explained.

The scientist said larger adult white sharks do occasionally pass through Long Island via the New York Bight but “they very rarely overlap during the summertime when the pups are there.”

Curtis said the pups are “left alone” and the adults travel further North — Cape Cod, Maine and Canada. “And the pups hang out off Long Island and so they are relatively protected there,” he added.

Teen who lost a hand, leg in Florida shark attack was on first beach trip with mom: ‘I saw her wounds … and started to scream’

Curtis said when the weather gets colder in the fall and the water starts to cool off, they all migrate south.

He noted that the waters off Long Island are “healthy” and the conditions are “just right for baby sharks for a number of species,” including makos, duskees, sandbar and sand tigers.

The scientist said the water gets warmer off New Jersey than it does on Eastern Long Island, “so as the summer progresses . . . most of the white sharks are further east. They’re closer to Montauk and they’re spending less time off Jersey.”

The bottom line?

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR METRO DAILY NEWSLETTER

“New Yorkers will be surprised how exciting and how much life is going on out there. There’s whales and dolphins and sea turtles and seals and all kinds of fish. New Yorkers may not appreciate how healthy the ocean is in their backyard,” Curtis said.

Travis Bogin appreciates the diversity of life in local waters.

Bogin, 39, was fishing solo 12 miles off Atlantic City Wednesday when he hooked a 5-and-half-foot great white.

“I was happy. Shocked. It was a major bucket list thing for me,” the Little Egg Harbor, NJ resident told The Post.

As for last summer’s baby-shark expedition, Metzger said, “The big splash was to put a very sophisticated camera tag on a baby white shark. So we were able with a lot of blood, sweat and tears to catch Liberty and put the tag on and follow her around.”

Metzger said over the first four years of their life, the sharks are “basically traveling the entire East Coast.”

The captain said the latest crop of younger-than-a-year sharks have “probably been here for a few weeks.”

Noted Megan Winton, a research scientist who bestowed the name Liberty on the tagged baby white, “There’s this popular perception that sharks are kind of these mindless killing machines that are right off of our beaches. But the more we study them, the more we learn that is certainly not the case. We are just starting to scratch the surface of what we know about these animals with these new technologies.”

For the latest metro stories, top headlines, breaking news and more, visit nypost.com/metro/