Posted on 06/28/2008 11:28:47 AM PDT by Capt. Tom
Boat passengers witness shark attack June 28, 2008 CHATHAM — Fourteen passengers on a seal watch boat saw a shark attack and kill a seal yesterday during a cruise to Monomoy Island.
The island, which is a national wildlife refuge, is home to hundreds of seals and also a favored feeding ground of several species of sharks.
Capt. Bob Littlefield is sure the shark he saw rip a seal in half yesterday afternoon was a great white.
"It was a quite a bloody mess," said Littlefield, who has been a captain on Cape Cod for 32 years.
Littlefield was steering a 42-foot, high-speed catamaran owned by Monomoy Island Excursions of Harwich Port on the ocean side of Monomoy, where hundreds of seals were sunning and swimming, when suddenly there was a commotion in the water.
Littlefield, who said he had always wanted to see a shark eat a seal, turned the boat toward the area, which quickly became red with blood. As the boat got closer, the shark went under, taking half of the gray seal with it. The tour captain estimated the seal to be 300 to 400 pounds, and the shark to be between 14 and 16 feet.
(Excerpt) Read more at capecodonline.com:80 ...
Like hot dogs and burgers, sometimes you use what you have...
Sounds like a hate crime.
This was a shark having lunch!
It's not like somebody was going to feed the thing a bowl of Purina Shark Chow.
Like hot dogs and burgers, sometimes you use what you have...
It's all chummy to me!
“Littlefield, who said he had always wanted to see a shark eat a seal, turned the boat toward the area, which quickly became red with blood. As the boat got closer, the shark went under, taking half of the gray seal with it.”
If I were on a boat wanting to see seals and the captain intentionally took me to see one being eaten, I’d be mad as hell. That’s like looking for a puppy and winding up at certain Asian restaurants.
For the last few years I have been getting e- mails from people who swim in that area describing to me what appears to be shark predation on seals at the seal colony at Monomoy. A friend of mine who officially investigates these situations has had positive proof of white shark bites on seal carcases that have washed ashore.
Just like in Jaws, the local politicians want to ignore this developing situation. We now have life imitating art here.
"JAWS"--Mayor Vaughn:
"Martin, it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, "Huh? What?" You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."
Friends of my parents had a summer place in Chatham and sometimes when we visited we’d go out to Montomoy. The thing I remember most was how quickly the the water dropped off on the backside.
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