Posted on 04/29/2021 2:09:15 PM PDT by Capt. Tom
The sharks are back roaming along the Cape shoreline.
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy on Thursday reported its first basking shark sighting off Provincetown’s Herring Cove Beach this season.
Although great white shark sightings are increasing every year along the Cape, they are not the only large shark off the Massachusetts coast.
The basking shark is the second largest fish in the ocean, and is often confused with white sharks, especially as their large dorsal fin often can be seen above the water.
There are some key features that can help differentiate the two sharks, including the shape of that dorsal fin. The basking shark has a large triangular shape dorsal fin, which is slightly rounded at the top. The white shark also has a large triangular shape dorsal fin, but it’s fin comes to a point at the apex.
Also, basking sharks have a fairly uniform body color, sometimes with mottled patches on their backs. Their gill slits are very large, and almost wrap completely around their heads.
White sharks have a distinct two-tone body color with a very white underside. Their gill slits, although large, are confined to the side of their heads and may not be noticeable at all.
The plankton-feeding basking shark is essentially harmless unless it swims into people, while the predatory white shark often feeds on marine mammals, including seals on the Cape.
There have been four white shark attacks on people along the Cape during the last decade. Three years ago, the state had its first shark attack fatality in 82 years.
We are only weeks away from the arrival of a white shark in Mass. waters
This year the white sharks will get all kinds of attention in New England as the "me too" white shark biologists formed a consortium to study the white shark.
There should be no shortage of radio and TV and newspaper articles about the ongoing white sharks sightings in New England.
This year(2021) we will have comments from : Maine Department of Maine Resources, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth- School for Marine science and technology, the New England Aquarium, Arizona State University, the Atlantic White Shark Institute, the NOAA Fisheries Apex Predator program, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
So you can see there will be no shortage of white shark info this summer of 2021 here in New England, as these shark biologists try to outdo each other. -Tom
In other news, the SPLC has announced that Great White Sharks shall be now called Great Oppressor Sharks and that shark attacks on people of color will be deemed hate snacks.
White Shark privilege must be stopped! There is only one solution: kill them. They are top line predators and are eating our favorite dinner fish. They are not needed. They make great cat food.
Given the shark sightings and attacks are clustered around Provincetown, I wonder if sharks prefer Homosexual and Transgender Meat to heterosexual meat?
At some of the Cape Cod town meetings those opinions have been expressed. Then the environmentalists-eco warriors-and others violently opposed.
They don't have those types of open meetings to discuss the shark and seal problem any more, as it gets too confrontational. -Tom
Well, the rumps are highly tenderized.
Geez...I only saw the movie “Jaws” and even I know that’s gonna get confrontational!
Come on in, the water’s fine!
There’s just so much we can learn from Great White Sharks.
I hear they have a really successful Covid vaccine.
I'm 73, transplanted to the tri-state are (Oh/WV/Pa) back in the mid 70's and I don't remember EVER hearing about sharks in that area.
Consequently I have not been following this, but ... is there a cliffs' notes version ?
Here is a background of how this happened.
Remember the movie JAWS, the movie that left you with a gnawing feeling that if you were frolicking in the ocean something bad might happen to you? That has become a reality for some Massachusetts’s beachgoers.
They are now experiencing interactions with white sharks, resulting in hospitalizations, close calls, and a fatal attack on Cape Cod in 2018.
For centuries, white sharks were known as "Maneaters", the name change to white sharks started in the 1950s, and was made popular by the movie" JAWS" which came out in 1975. White sharks were kept at low numbers by killing them for their jaws, and meat. The jaws could be sold for thousands of dollars, or kept as trophies, and the meat and fins could also be sold.
The white sharks prey, the Seals, were culled in Maine and Massachusetts by paying a bounty from 1888 to 1962. That reduction in seals satisfied the commercial fishermen, who saw the seals as competition.
Why are there so many white sharks and gray seals here now? What happened?
The Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act gave protection to gray seals in 1972, and the Federal law in 1997 gave protection to the white sharks. And both species have thrived. That's what happened.
Massachusetts went along with the Federal Govt., as did the other states, and protected white sharks in State waters. Both species white shark and seals are native to New England.
In Massachusetts the protected gray seal population exploded from a few dozen in 1972 to an estimated 50,000 seals presently throughout Massachusetts. Massive seal colonies have formed on Cape Cod, and are spreading out.
The increased white shark movement to Cape Cod waters started around 2003. The larger, now protected , nomadic coastal cruising population of white sharks altered their ocean routes, to zero in on the protected tens of thousands of nutritious gray seals on Cape Cod’s Easterly Oceanside beaches of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Chatham.
The smaller white sharks in the 7 -9 foot range ; which are more into eating fish than seals, have recently come into Mass. waters. These relatively smaller white sharks would have been born after the 1997 protection provided by the Federal government. In the early 2000s , warning signs of a potential shark problem began when gray seals, cut in half, or showing serious bite wounds, began to come ashore on Cape Cod’s easterly facing beaches, where the public likes to swim, bathe and surf. After examining the seal carcasses, marine biologist John Chisholm determined the damage had been done by white sharks, (Carcharodon carcharias).
Definitive photographic proof of white sharks appearing on those Easterly Cape Cod beaches, came 4 years later on Labor Day weekend 2008, when a tuna spotter pilot Wayne Davis, returning from offshore to Chatham airport saw a shark near the shore, Wayne realized it wasn’t a common basking shark, and took aerial photos that shark biologists used to identify it as a white shark.
The following year, Pilot George Breen in 2009 spotted two sharks in the same area, and later that day took up shark expert Dr. Greg Skomal, senior biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (MDMF), who identified the sharks as white sharks.
Three days later, in 2009, Dr. Skomal, along with asst. John Chisholm ,both from the Mass. Div. of Marine Fisheries, were aboard the EZ Duzit with harpooner Billy Chaprales and his son Nick; and George Breen doing the airplane spotting, they were able to get satellite tags into two white sharks off Chatham. Thus began one of the world’s most successful white shark tagging programs that continues to this day.
Since then the white shark taggers had so many tagging successes they out ran the tags, and the money supplied by the State. A newly formed Atlantic White Shark Conservancy stepped in to help out, and raises money to aid in this white shark research operation. AWSC has donated the tagging boat, spotter plane, shark ping detection buoys, and has given other assistance. The AWSC changed part of the tagging team to John King's boat , and spotter pilot Wayne Davis. Dr. Skomal told me 151 White sharks have been tagged thru 2018. More sharks could have been tagged - if tags were available. (more tags became available,and last year,2020, white sharks were tagged on both the Ocean and Bay side of Cape Cod.)-Tom
JUST what I wanted.
As a newbie observer, it occurs to me neither species is in any danger of extinction so ... why not open up the harvesting again snd sell the stuff to China ?
You cannot harm the sharks or seals because they are Federally protected species.
The Federally protected seals and white sharks are long living species; gray seals in the wild live about 30 years, and white sharks as long as 60-70 years.
As long as white sharks and seals are protected, expect these white shark encounters to continue in the New England area when people enter the white shark’s domain, which begins when the saltwater gets above our knees. - Tom
I thought they broke up after that horrible club fire?
Have any White Sharks gone further north?
.
‘Have any White Sharks gone further north?’
Cool water is tolerated by white sharks and they wil go all the way up into Canadian waters.
Below is a link to a 1938 white shark taken at Plymouth Ma in a gillnet by Eddie Fairweather. It was around the first of February.
Eddie told me it was one of the coldest days of the year.
Look at how the people on the pier are bundled up.
The water temp was probably in the 40s.-Tom
.
http://www.newenglandsharks.com/files/whitegnshark.jpg
I suggested ... remove the protections, bring the populations down and out of Cape waters and sell the parts is parts to China.
I'm SURE they have a centuries old aphrodisiac that is shark based
That was a great post, informative, well formatted, well written, and even...entertaining.
Thank you for the contribution, Capt. Tom.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
