Posted on 10/26/2014 2:24:01 PM PDT by Capt. Tom
There has been a lot of effort in the last few years put into tagging and identifying individual white sharks on the east side of Cape Cod, especially in the Chatham area.
Even though I have always had good info on what is happening with these white sharks, I was surprised by the number of whites that hang around that area. They are tagged, filmed by researchers and pleasure boaters, individually identified, and documented, in such a small area. On the east side of Cape Cod we are talking about an area 20 miles long and not very wide since the tagging and spotting is done close to shore in shallow water, and the distance is limited by the range of the tagging boat which comes out of Chatham.
It is impractical to run out into deep water to try to tag a shark that might go down before you get there, or to run long distances when there are so many sharks nearby- so local shallow water is where the spotting and tagging takes place. And the reasearchers are getting really good at documenting and tagging those sharks.
Amazingly, they have documented sixty (60) individual whites in that small area and have tagged about 55 through the years. They could have tagged more but they run out of expensive tags and have to restock. They have gone out with 3 tags and the spotter plane has spotted as many as 15 different white sharks in tagging range; but only 3 will get tagged on that day. Then they wait till they can buy more tags, regroup, and get a good weaher day to go back out.
I mentioned to the spotter pilot , that we have whites in an area we fish near Peaked Hill on the north side of Provincetown. Two of my friends while separately tuna fishing have hooked up on them, one broke off, and one was brought alongside and released. The shark was within 3 feet of view and they saw triangular serrated teeth a white shark feature. They have so many untagged sharks at Chatham they just don't need to tag that far north. It is about another 30 miles to that area.
The pilot told me an interesting story about that area I mentioned -he normally flies and turns back a few miles south of Provincetown, but about a week ago he kept going and looked the area over and saw 5 white sharks there, and here is what he sent me in an e- mail along with some photos of the white sharks there:
"the last 3 are all north of Golf ball.......the 2nd one is a GWhite that just burst thru the surf outbound......I missed it w/my camera, but I saw it RIGHT ON TOP of the surf when he plunged thru the wave heading offshore.....pretty neat...ENJOY!!
Tom here- When I saw his photo of the white shark just clearing the surf it looks like it could have grounded itself if it did not get out of the surf and into deeper water, I am familiar with that stretch of beach as we bass and bluefish there.
There are also more white sharks inside the Bay on the Plymouth side, and when you put the whole picture together there are plenty of them around in Mass. waters.
People ask me, why are there so many white sharks around lately, . To me two reasons leap out. This is their normal range, and they have been protected since 1997. That's 17 years to make a comeback and it seems to be working at least in my little area of the world. -Tom
Yesterday, Oct. 28, 2014 the tagging boat and spotter plane got some photos of a white shark predation on a seal close to shore off Chatham MA.
Try this link for the photos. You might have to copy and paste the URL into your computer to bring it up. -tom
https://www.facebook.com/atlanticwhiteshark
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