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.
Thanks..... wow,I went to the beach on The Vineyard summer,1938....it was the year my father died and we visited relatives there.
.
Once word got around in the “shark world” that Mundus was out of the game, the NY Bight became the hot summer destination for Whites. This was solidified thanks to all the great beach-front dining afforded by the seals at its North end.
Great White Supremacy.............................
Of course not! Those people are too skinny and bony up there......................
violently?
There’s a ‘cure’ for that...................
Great summation. As you know, they stopped the annual Boston Fish Club (?) shark contest in Oak Bluffs many years ago. One would think that, just as we cull the deer herd, fishermen would be allowed to do the same with sharks. Although the increased population of seals is another matter. You would think that with the tagging you could identify the approximately number of sharks and cull accordingly. It’s a complex sensitive area that you provide great historical background and current events on.
However Rep. Major Owens believed that it was the slave trade that altered the ecology of the ocean. He stated that over 200,000,000 dead African slaves dumped overboard altered the feeding habits of sharks to such an extent that sharks to this very day still patrol the old slave ship routes looking for chum....no, really!
I want to thank the Freepers for the positive comments.
Now at the risk of boring you to death here is the rest of the story. -Tom
Occasional bad weather can be a detrimental factor for tagging, as it brings rough seas, turbid water, wind and fog; otherwise that area on Cape Cod’s easterly facing beaches is just about perfect for shark tagging. It is a relatively remote area, has massive gray seal colonies, it has shallow water with a sandy bottom making it easier to spot the sharks and track them, it has a safe harbor for John King’s tagging boat, a nearby airport for Wayne Davis’s spotter plane, and no shortage of white sharks close to shore.
Spotter pilots in 2020 during the summer regularly see 10 or more white sharks per day in the tagging area, from Monomoy Point north to Provinceown, on Cape Cod's easterly oceanside.
The tagging boat comes out on the easterly ocean side of Chatham, and the limited distance the tagging boat can travel, means no tagging was done on the other side of Cape Cod, the Cape Cod Bay side; that would be on the Plymouth/Boston side.
White sharks have always been in Massachusetts waters, but not in the numbers we are now seeing. A limited successful tagging operation was started on the westerly Cape Cod Bay side of Cape Cod in 2020.
The acoustically tagged white sharks from Cape Cod have been recorded on hydrophones along the East Coast from Canada to Florida, and locally on the Plymouth/Boston side in Mass. Bay and Cape Cod Bay.
Hydrophones are underwater sound receivers placed strategically throughout the ocean by many different groups of marine researchers to receive signals (pings) from acoustic tags placed on or inside various species . When an acoustic tagged species gets within a few hundred yards of a hydrophone, the hydrophone that gets pinged, records the unique identification of the individual involved, the date, and time of the ping, and in some cases the acoustic tag will also ping the depth of the tag. It could be a ping from any individual of an ocean species tagged by different researchers, such as sharks,stripers,cod etc.
This pinging information should get shared with a network of different researchers studying dissimilar ocean species coastwise. But unfortunately that is not always the case. That means some white shark pings will go unreported by people interested in other species, and not interested in sharks.
Untagged white sharks in the Cape Cod area greatly outnumber the acoustically tagged sharks and cannot be recorded on any hydrophone. The best estimate is there is about 4-1, or possibly more, untagged white sharks than tagged sharks.
Unless the hydrophones are real-time, which means they give immediate notification ashore that a shark has arrived at the buoy, they have to be retrieved to extract the recorded ping information, generally on a monthly basis in Massachusetts’s for white sharks.
The receivers are put out in late spring, and brought ashore in December to avoid damage or loss by winter storms. There are about 100 hydrophone recievers statewide in Massachuetts, put out by various research groups for many different Ocean species.
The real time buoys cost about $14,000 apiece. In 2020 these real-time buoys were installed on 5 beaches on Cape Cod in the Truro-Wellfleet area , which gives the lifeguards and other agencies a quicker notice that a tagged white shark is in the area, and allows a prompt warning to bathers to get out of the water. These shark pings , sometime a half a dozen per day at a beach are a daily occurence from these real- time buoys, and should be that way until most of the white sharks leave in late October, November, and December.
White sharks have spread into all Massachusetts ocean waters, not just Cape Cod, and have gone north to Maine and Canada, which is also their normal range.
The last few years, people have had some close calls with white sharks that could have been fatal . July, 30, 2012, a Colorado man at Ballston Beach, Truro, Cape Cod was bitten by a white shark. He was treated and received 47 stitches. Chris Myers, was attacked around 3:30 PM while swimming with his 16-year-old son, J.J.
On the other side of Cape Cod , Sept. 3, 2014, off Manomet Point, Plymouth, two women in separate kayaks were side by side observing seals when a large white shark attacked one of the kayaks, knocking both women overboard. They were in the water for about a half hour, before being rescued by an Asst. Plymouth Harbormaster and another kayaker.
This could have been a fatality, or resulted in serious injury, but the kayakers survived unscathed. The State’s shark incident investigator John Chisholm told me bite marks on the attacked kayak indicated a predatory bite, as the teeth penetrated well into the well-made kayak. Since the shark didn’t return I think we can conclude a kayak was not on that white shark’s meal list.
A 61 yr. old male victim was attacked by a white shark off Truro on August 15, 2018, he had a large blood loss, was med- evacuated to a Boston Hospital where he underwent multiple surgeries and blood transfusions- and weeks of recuperation. That near fatal attack prompted many people to worry that eventually a fatality would happen. They didn't have to wait long.
A month later, on Saturday, September 15th, 2018, Arthur Medici, 26, from Revere, Mass. was fatally attacked by a white shark. He was boogie-boarding off Cape Cod’s Newcomb Hollow beach in Wellfleet when the attack occurred- his femoral artery was severed in his leg. He was pronounced dead when he reached the hospital.
Newcomb Hollow beach in Wellfleet where Arthur Medici was killed is one of the beaches in 2020 to get a real-time tagged shark warning buoy. And tagged sharks are pinging it every day during the summer. Untagged sharks can't ping the buoy.
Prior to that 2018 fatal attack on Arthur Medici, the last fatal shark attack in Mass. occurred at Hollywood beach, Mattapoisett on July, 25, 1936, when 16 year old Joseph Troy Jr. from the Dorchester section of Boston was attacked while swimming with a friend. Joseph Troy died that night in a New Bedford Hospital.
After an investigation of the fatal Troy attack, the shark involved was identified by Dr. Hugh M. Smith, former director of the US Bureau of Fisheries as a man-eater, Carcharodon carcharias, the common name at that time for a white shark.
On Monday, July 27th, 2020 , 63-year-old Julie Dimperio Holowach, of New York City, was swimming with her daughter off the shore of Bailey Island, Maine when she was attacked and killed by a white shark.
One of the reactions to this fatal attack is the state of Maine is going to cooperate with Mass.Div.of Marine Fisheries, and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy biologists, and will install about 20 hydrophone buoys along the Maine coast to detect tagged white sharks.
To their credit, many Massachusetts coastal Politicians, Police, Harbormasters, shark researchers and medical personnel have taken steps to try to address these increasing shark related problems. Shark warning signs have been posted at vulnerable beaches, based on shark sightings, hydrophone pings, and actual attacks. Few bathers are now venturing deeper than waist deep, and the surfers are greatly reduced.
Coastal towns have been entertaining additional solutions such as: installing more expensive real- time tagged shark alert buoys, flying drones to spot sharks- making medical supplies available at certain beaches - installing direct alarm systems for seeking medical aid - improving the area cell phone coverage - and offering “Stop the Bleed” medical instructions to the public. EMTs are now better prepared how to quickly respond to shark attacks, and how to treat the wounded. -Tom
Not at all boring. This is good information, and very interesting to read. We appreciate your taking the time to compose and post it!
My wife and I were staying last year up near Bailey’s Island in Maine, nice looking area, but...would think twice about swimming there for sure.
When the State of Maine puts out their 20 or more tagged shark ping detection buoys this summer, I believe they will find out there are more tagged whites in their area than they believed.
This will cause more Maniacs to forgo swimming, especially if it involves using a wetsuit in the cold New England waters up there.
Also last years fatality will curb the exuberance for swimming. -Tom
I know...
“Hmm. What should I do today? I know! I will dress up in a black wet suit that makes me look like a seal from down below, and swim in the water where there are creatures down below that enjoy eating seals!”
“Hmm. What should I do today? I know! I will dress up in a black wet suit that makes me look like a seal from down below, and swim in the water where there are creatures down below that enjoy eating seals!”
Many years ago I mentioned to spotter pilot Wayne Davis, that we had some white sharks along Peaked Hill Bar in Provincetown which was out of he boats shark tagging area.(to far north)
One day Wayne flew up there and spotted 5 white sharks.
He took a photo of one almost on the beach coming out of the very shallow white water,which he sent to me.
So you don’t have to be in deep water to have a shark problem. See below. -Tom
<img src=”http://www.newenglandsharks.com/files/1X2B3946CCexitsSurf_edit.jpg” width=”80%”
One will eat you and the other one won't.....You can usually figure out which one is which when you try to pet them.
“One will eat you and the other one won’t.....You can usually figure out which one is which when you try to pet them.”
How lucky do you feel?
Pet or don’t pet? view below. -Tom
https://twitter.com/i/status/1387788768820797442
Pretty damn lucky! Unortunately we fished them to near extinction here in Michigan back in the 1930's and 40's with most of them being taken during ice fishing season.
It wasn't until the EPA was established in 1970 that they were immediately put on the endangered species list here in Michigan but by then, their numbers had been completely decimated.
During the summer months when they were fished, the most popular way to catch them was by trolling with kittens and puppies as bait........
I think any shark off a tourist beach is going to make us humans nervous. In 1916 here off The Jersey Shore resort town of Spring Lake there were a series of shark attacks that left four people dead.
However I think the culprit was finally found to have been a Bull shark.
Thank God the Megaladon shark isn’t around anymore.
Imagine a 60 ft. shark cruising off your shores.
Boy, there’d go your summer rental.
The bull shark theory has recently been discredited since a recent analysis of the salt water in Mattawan creek where the 4th victim was killed, shows that Matawan creek was capable of supporting a white shark that was later killed in nearby Raritan bay, and had human remains in its stomach. Then the attacks stopped. -Tom
When I was a kid, we were visiting my aunt and uncle in Yonkers, NY. My uncle took us to Jones Beach, on Long Island. While we were happily splashing around in the ocean (a novelty for us from the Midwest), a shark alert was sounded. “Everybody outta the wattah!” came across the P.A. system. We got out of the water like we were running on dry land. And I never went back into the ocean after that. Way prior to the movie “Jaws” coming out.
Me. 1974 IIRC. 2nd sandbar with my little inflatable raft.
A very large hammerhead swam past.
I leapt from the water and onto the raft in one motion.
Spent the rest of the vacation collecting some of the abundant shark teeth that had been washing up that summer.
So it was a Great White after all? Thanks for the clarification.
I live on The Jersey Shore. When I was a kid I had relatives who lived in Belmar, NJ.(this was in the early ‘60s.) Locals still talked about the incident.
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