It also mentions two friends of mine Dr. Skomal and John Chisholm who are white shark experts.
I will have to talk to the author of this article as she writes like I do - conveying information and not to entertain the reader.
And remember, for every acoustically tagged white shark there are many more untagged sharks swimming around that are not going to ping any hydrophone buoy.-Tom
Contains info for you Maniacs-I mean for you Mainers. -Tom
> Julie wore her usual wetsuit.
So, try to look like a seal but splash around (relatively) like a wounded one.
The ocean is a big place with lots of big animals in it.
harpswell is were I used to vacation
The marine mammal protection act of the 1970s caused an increase of seals etc exponentially. The Sharks, especially the Great White increased in numbers along with the pinnipeds. This was bound to happen.
I suspect the shark was after the harbor seal briefly mentioned at the start of the article. But harbor seal got out of there, leaving the shark to look for targets of opportunity. Like a splashing human.
Apparently, way back, gray seals were abundant off Maine, as were the sharks that hunted them, but hunters drove the seals out of the area, so the sharks left. But in recent years, there has been efforts to bring back the gray seals.
There have been sharks teeth found in Penobscot Bay.
Sigh. It was sad to read, kind of an end of innocence type of thing. My wife and I drove past there last year, and didn’t realize right away that was the place. How sad, such an attractive area, with that hanging over it.
I think you could say to people until you are blue in the face that it was an exceedingly rare thing, etc. etc. etc.
Driving off Pikes Peak in a car that lost its brakes and plummeted a thousand feet won’t stop people from driving up Pike’s Peak.
But someone being killed by a shark will ruin ocean swimming for many people forever.
I can only imagine having seen that.
I collided with a bicyclist a few years back and while I wasn’t physically hurt, the image of him flying over my hood in super slow motion, his open mouth, his bare legs, his body cartwheeling as the cartwheeling bike followed him mirroring his path...well, that was a short video clip that played over and over in my head for months. Anytime I wasn’t engaged doing something, I would see it playing out...over and over.
Those poor people. I pray for them. I just cannot imagine seeing that. I never discounted PTSD like I have seen some people do, but that gave me a much different perspective on the power of it.
The Harpswell Islands fishermen reaped the bounty of the returning schools of Pogies (Menhaden), not seen en masse for almost two decades; great bait for the lobster fishery, the mainstay of that island’s economy.
The harbor seals chased after the schools, feasting on them ravenously.
The sharks follow and feed on the chubby, Pogie-fed harbor seals, and Julie Holowach had the ill-timed misfortune of swimming while clad in a wetsuit, resembling a tasty seal-snack.
To recall the lyrics of Bobby Darin: “The shark bites, with his teeth, dear... and he keeps them... pearly white...”
Damn horrible when it happens in your town, but even then, the next day, teenagers were jumping in and swimming off the Cribstone Bridge that links Orr’s and Bailey Islands, saying “We’re not afraid of sharks!”
Last time I was in the ocean was 20 years ago, North San Diego County. Twisted my knee when my foot got stuck in the sand.
Eight years later, a great white came up from underneath a swimmer, just a few hundred yards away from my final dip. Shark lifted him out of the water and bit both legs off, mid-thigh. Made the news, then it was hush hush, and now hard to find on the Web.
Swimming pool. Shower. Walking in the rain. That’s about it for me,, as far as water sports are concerned.
You can't go and give some of the sharks cool names like "Salty", then turn around and name the next one something lame like "White Shark 2020_07". There are tons of good shark names available; "Smiley", "Mostly Peaceful", "Pool", "Land", "Lawyer", etc.
They should put sonar sensors under water along the coast lines maybe 100 feet out that alerts of anything over 7 or 8 feet moving under water.
They were fishing/chumming in that area before the attack.
An old boss used to say, you enter the ocean, you become part of the food chain.
The same applies to fresh water in Florida, lower GA, AL, MS, and LA.
It also applies outside of water in Chicago.
I’m surprised BLM is not calling out Great Whites for preferring the taste of white people 10 to 1 over blacks. The real problem is trying to get white people from tasting soooo delicious!
A friend’s granddaughter was bitten on the foot by a shark, just off Oak Island NC, a few years ago. She is fine, just a bit of lingering nerve damage. Sharks are EVERYWHERE. When the ocean meets the land, you can bank on the possibility of sharks. Doesn’t matter if you are in shallow water or deeper water.
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