Time to bring back sealskin coats.............. https://sartorialnotes.com/2013/03/06/bespoke-seal-fur-coat/
Posted on 07/30/2021 6:01:03 PM PDT by Capt. Tom
Why are there so many white sharks here now? What happened? It wasn’t like this before.
Remember the movie JAWS, the movie that left you with a gnawing feeling that if you were frolicking in the white shark’s domain something bad might happen to you? That has become a reality for some Massachusetts’s beachgoers. They are experiencing recent interactions with white sharks, resulting in attacks causing hospitalizations, close calls, and a fatal attack in 2018.
Why are there so many white sharks here now? What happened? It wasn’t like this before.
Basically, it is because seals, and their predators the white sharks, were given protection by the federal government; and both species have flourished.
From 1888 to 1962, Seals were culled in Maine and Massachusetts by paying a bounty on them; this kept their numbers down. The Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act gave seals protection in 1972. Throughout Massachusetts the gray seal population exploded from a few dozen in 1972 to an estimated 50,000 or more in 2018.
Until the 1970s, white sharks were called “man-eaters” and were routinely killed for their trophy jaws and meat. They were a rarity in Massachusetts when they received federal protection in 1997.
A few years later, in the early 2000s, the protected, nomadic white sharks, 12 feet in length and longer, gradually altered their coastal ocean routes to zero in on the thousands of nutritious gray seals that were multiplying on Cape Cod’s oceanside beaches of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Chatham.
Smaller whites, in the 8-10-foot range, have recently arrived in Massachusetts waters. These relatively smaller white sharks were born after the 1997 protection provided by the federal government, and are a sign that the 1997 protection is working.
The largest of the white shark species can reach a 16-19 foot length and weigh 2,500-5,000 lbs. Most people reading this have a room 10 by12 feet or larger. Visualize a shark having the length or width of that room. It will give you a perception of their size, and ours, in relation to them.
In Massachusetts waters, a few white sharks usually show up in early June and more arrive in late June and July and stay into October--with an occasional one staying on into the winter months. As best as I can determine, although a white shark can go over a month between meals, given the opportunity to feed on a seal, a white shark will eat a seal about every 10 days.
Signs of a potential white shark increase began roughly 15 years ago, when gray seals cut in half, or showing serious bite wounds, began coming ashore on Cape Cod’s easterly beaches. After examining the mauled seal carcasses, marine biologists determined the damage had been done by white sharks, carcharodon carcharias.
The Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act gave seals protection in 1972. Throughout Massachusetts the gray seal population exploded from a few dozen in 1972, to an estimated 50,000 or more in 2018.
On Labor Day weekend 2008, tuna spotter pilot Wayne Davis, returning to Chatham airport, saw a shark near shore; it was about a mile from some surfers, and heading toward them. Wayne realized it wasn’t a common basking shark and took aerial photos that shark biologists used to identify the shark as a white shark.
The following year, pilot George Breen spotted two sharks in the Chatham area, and later that day took up shark expert Greg Skomal, senior biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, who identified the sharks as white sharks.
Three days later, Skomal, along with assistant John Chisholm, were aboard the EZ Duzit with harpooner Billy Chaprales, and his son Nick; 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, and filming, programs.
It is not unusual now for a spotter pilot to see 10 or more white sharks a day in a flight along those easterly Cape Cod beaches during the summer.
Through the years the taggers used up the white shark tags and money provided by donations and small grants. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy stepped in to help, and raises money to aid in this white shark research operation. AWSC has donated the tagging boat, spotter plane, and other assistance.
Skomal told me 151 white sharks had been tagged thru 2018. Many more sharks could have been tagged - if the tags were available. The sharks that aren’t tagged are filmed by GoPro cameras from the tagging boat, and identified by the distinguishing characteristics of each individual.
There are over 300 individual white sharks cataloged for future reference.
Occasional bad weather during the summertime is a detrimental factor for tagging, as it brings wind, rough seas and fog. Otherwise, that area on Cape Cod’s easterly beaches is just about perfect for shark tagging. It is a relatively remote area, has massive gray seal colonies, shallow water with a sandy bottom making it easy 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.
The tagging boat in Chatham comes out on the ocean side, and the limited distance the boat can travel means no tagging was done on the other side of Cape Cod, on the Boston/Plymouth side. A tagging operation will be started in 2019 on that Cape Cod Bay side, according to AWSC and the state.
White sharks are there also, and on the increase, according to spotter plane pilots, eye witnesses, anglers who have had their striper and bluefish catches attacked by white sharks, and tagged white shark pings recorded on hydrophones, from Scituate to Plymouth.
Hydrophones are underwater receivers placed strategically by many different groups of marine researchers to receive signals (pings) from acoustic tags placed on or inside various ocean species. When an acoustic tagged species gets within 1,000 feet of a hydrophone, the hydrophone records the date and time of the ping, and the unique signal indicates what tagged individual was involved.
On the bay side in early Sept. 2014, off Manomet Point, Plymouth, two women in separate kayaks were side by side observing seals, when a 14-16-foot 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 a Plymouth assistant harbormaster and another kayaker. This could have resulted in serious injury-- fortunately 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 won’t be on that white shark’s preferred meal list.
Like that kayak, we might not be on a white shark’s menu, but how does a shark determine a seal-sized person isn’t as good a meal, or maybe a better meal than a seal? A sample bite taken with large triangular serrated teeth can be a devastating problem for us, even if we are afterwards rejected as not being a suitable meal for the shark.
The increase in white sharks, the 2014 Plymouth kayak attack, past incidents involving shark attacks on seals close to shore and near swimmers, and an attack earlier in July 2012 on a swimmer who was bitten on his leg, at Ballston Beach, Truro, had some people developing a “wait till next year” attitude for a fatal attack.
On Aug. 15, 2018, a 61-year-old man was attacked by a white shark off Long Nook Beach, Truro. He had a large blood loss and 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 more people to believe it was only a matter of time until a fatality would occur.
They didn’t have to wait till next year.
A month later, on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018, Arthur Medici, 26, from Revere, was attacked by a white shark. He was boogie-boarding off Newcomb Hollow beach in Wellfleet when the attack occurred. He was pronounced dead when he reached the hospital.
Prior to that 2018 fatal attack, the last fatal shark attack in Massachusetts occurred in Buzzards Bay, at Hollywood Beach, Mattapoisett, on July 25, 1936, when 16-year-old Joseph Troy Jr. from Dorchester was attacked while swimming with a friend. Troy died that night in a New Bedford hospital.
After an investigation of the fatal attack, the shark involved was identified by Hugh Smith, former director of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries as a “man-eater,” Carcharodon carcharias, the common name at that time for a white shark.
Statistics are on our side when shark attacks are involved, but when people are frolicking around in the salt water they are not worried about getting hit in the head with a coconut, or being struck by lightning, or being killed in a car crash, they are worried about.... Well, you get the picture.
Many Massachusetts coastal politicians, harbormasters, beach managers, shark researchers and medical personnel are trying to mitigate these increasing shark-related problems. They have to deal with our irrational fear of sharks, and many conflicting group agendas that will make public meetings and seeking solutions very contentious.
In 2019 the state appropriated $383,000 for better beach safety for bathers. Beach signs with shark warnings are now more alarming, and some call boxes and medical equipment have been placed at selected beaches.
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. These federally protected species are not going away.
Expect these white shark encounters to continue when we enter the white shark’s domain - which begins when the saltwater gets above our knees.
I came across it while looking for a recent up to date article I wrote for the 2021 shark season.-Tom
Hopefully some Freepers will like it.
“A few years later, in the early 2000s, the protected, nomadic white sharks, 12 feet in length and longer, gradually altered their coastal ocean routes to zero in on the thousands of nutritious gray seals that were multiplying on Cape Cod’s oceanside beaches of Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Chatham.”
Lets see: sharks protected, check. Nutritious seals protected, check
Less nutritious human snacks, not protected. Got it
I would think that politicians would be nutritious due to fat content. But only Republications. Everyone knows Democrats are a protected species.
Damn well written article, Cap!
Do not suite up in a black wet suite and black swim fins.
Usually when a town meeting gets hot and heavy there are two sides like Republicans and democrats. There is that down the Cape but there are several other sides when it come to handling the shark/seal problem ,so whatever you say you are not going to face opposition from one other side, you are going to get hit from several groups with different agendas. The Cape Cod towns gave up on having opinion meetings as they got too confrontational. -Tom
I’d strongly encourage MA residents/voters to help preserve the white sharks by swimming frequently on the Cape...
Swimming enjoyment can be enhanced by rubbing animal blood on your legs before entering the water...
Heh, the town meeting in the movie Jaws is ample illustration of how it would descend into an exercise in herding cats…
I find the cultural mirror of that movie to be most entertaining…even some 35+ years later!
Oops, 45+years later!
I seem to remember from reading Jaws the book that in response to a question about why the shark was hanging around, a character replied “It had food”.
Having worked in public sevice for 30 years, Jaws is a perfect case study of the problems with city government. A political motivated mayor, refusing to listen to logic, who throws his police chief under the bus for trying to do the job he was hored to do
Seal thriving is now throughout New England, thanks to Federal protection.
Data shows some white sharks hang around Cape Cod, others cruise the coast all the way up into Canada. Plenty of seal meal opportunities along the way.
Right now, as best I can determine, if the seal meal is readily available, about once a week is adequate to feed a white sharks appetite. -Tom
That was a great summary of the dysfunctional aspects of our various forms of government. Nice job.
I always figured if I ever went back to get my Master’s in Public Administration, it would be the basis for my thesis.
I also always told new members of my senior staff to watch it so they get a good idea of life at the top of local government.
Heh, love it!
True enough - Seattle last year great case in point.
Time to bring back sealskin coats.............. https://sartorialnotes.com/2013/03/06/bespoke-seal-fur-coat/
I thought of the time when Wayne Davis tuna spotter pilot could not get any Cape Cod Newspapers to write about the white shark he had photos of, which was close to shore in Chatham, Cape Cod.
Remember the scene in “Jaws” where Mayor
Vaughn is concerned about the Police Chief Martin Brody panicking the beachgoers with shark talk.
“Martin, it’s all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, “Huh? What?” You yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”
Only in this case on Cape Cod it
was Labor Day weekend 2008. -Tom
I learned to surf at Nauset Beach in the 70s. Couldn’t pay me to go into that water now.
Right now if you read anything by or about an avid Cape Cod surfer, they all seem to have witnessed white shark attacks on seals while waiting for the right wave.
Some have given up surfing, and some will only go in the winter and spring.
The summer surfers are at ground zero. Those wet suit surfers see a lot more white shark activity up close, than any other group. -Tom
There was some body at Nauset beach looking for you today. Maybe it can catch up to you when it passes No. Carolina this winter - Tom
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