Cape Cod shark report faulted for misleading data, costs

Cape Cod Times ^ | Sunday November 17, 2019 - 4:38:38 am | Doug Fraser»

[Capt. Tom]

ORLEANS — On a sunny fall day, Kristian Sexton was sitting on Nauset Beach, hunched over a small hand-held monitor, his head buried in a sun shade. Offshore, feeding humpback whales were breaching, but closer to the beach, Sexton was tracking three great white sharks with a drone ….snip

“It’s definitely a promising technology, not a perfect (shark detection) technology, nothing is, but in the right conditions you can see very well,” he said. Sexton is critical of the assessment of shark mitigation technologies by the Woods Hole Group ...snip

In an email response to an interview request, Woods Hole Group spokesman Adam Finkle said his company and its clients would be addressing questions and comments after the end of the Dec. 16 public comment period...snip

“On a sandy bottom, I very easily spotted them. I could fly away, come back in a half hour and fly right back to where they’ll be,” said plane pilot George Breen, who was a shark spotter for state shark researcher Gregory Skomal for years and now finds sharks for charter vessels running great white shark tours. Every day I flew this summer, I saw them,” he said. ... snip

Spotter planes also routinely fly at 1,000 feet, not the 500-foot level in the Robbins study. “Height is your friend,” said spotter pilot Wayne Davis.

Tom here- more info in the article.

[TMN78247]

IF the agencies asked, I believe that a great many individual/groups/foundations/agencies would help underwrite a MUCH larger catch/tag/release program.
(I’m FAR from the only person in the USA, who is fascinated with Great Whites.)

To paraphrase a Bible verse: “Those who ask NOT, neither do they receive.”

Yours, TMN78247

[Capt. Tom]

Do you have ANY knowledge or even have a reason to believe that ANY Great Whites have been killed UNLAWFULLY in let’s say the last 5 years?

The white sharks are killed "accidentally", and some are not reported.

Commercial fishermen and others are required by Federal regulations to report accidental catches, of white sharks
This is the equivalent of having them dial 1-800-SHUT ME DOWN.

Some will not do it, since their livelihood can be at stake.
Some will call in. See:

https://www.patriotledger.com/news/20180729/10-foot-great-white-shark-brought-into-scituate-harbor

-Tom

[Capt. Tom]

“Some of the Cape Towns stopped having public input because the meetings got so hot and heavy.- Tom “

Lol, that says it all right there.

You can see from a quote below,from a Cape Cod newspaper, the number of shark mitigation strategies dicussed; that grasping at straws to describe the present situation would not be that far off.
This shark/people problem hasn't been solved anywhere on this planet. -Tom

The study, which was a collaboration by the six Outer Cape towns, the Cape Cod National Seashore and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, cost around $50,000 and analyzed 27 shark mitigation strategies.