Female copper sharks make use of shallow inshore habitats, varying from stretches of open coast to more sheltered bays and inlets, as nurseries. These nurseries provide abundant food and reduce the likelihood of predation by larger members of the species. Known and suspected nursery areas occur off northern North Island from Waimea Inlet to Hawke Bay for New Zealand sharks, off Albany, in and around Gulf St Vincent, and in Port Phillip Bay for Australian sharks, off Niigata (Japan) for northwestern Pacific sharks, off the Eastern Cape for South Africa sharks, off Rhodes (Greece), Nice (France), and Al Hoceima (Morocco) for Mediterranean sharks, off Río de Oro (Western Sahara) for northwest African sharks, off Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Buenos Aires and Bahía Blanca (Argentina) for southwestern Atlantic sharks, and off Paita and Guanape Cove (Peru), in Sebastián Vizcaíno Bay (Mexico), and in and around San Diego Bay for eastern Pacific sharks.