Posted on 11/25/2021 4:28:48 PM PST by Capt. Tom
Most of the great white sharks that hang around Cape Cod have started heading south toward warmer waters after another “very productive” research season.
Shark scientists with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy tagged dozens of the apex predators this year, bringing the researchers’ total to 279 sharks tagged in the last several years.
During the fieldwork this shark season, Atlantic White Shark Conservancy researchers with the Division of Marine Fisheries put out 39 acoustic tags and 10 special CATs tags that give scientists a sharks’ eye view through video footage.
“We got a lot accomplished, a lot of tags went out,” said Megan Winton, a research scientist at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.
“It’s been a great, very productive season and these research trips are part of the big, long-term research projects we have going on,” Winton added.
The Cape fieldwork is now over for the year, but data analysis is an all-year project. The researchers after wrapping up the season and getting the equipment back in will work on digesting and processing the tagging data.
The tags help the researchers better monitor the great white sharks and give them a better idea of their predatory behavior. The massive seal population has attracted all these sharks to the Cape.
“This research is part of our long-term monitoring, and for us to get a better understanding of this species’ predatory near-shore behavior,” Winton said.
“We use the tagging data to get an idea of what the population is doing as a whole,” she added. “You can identify trends and behavior patterns, and scale up to the broader population.”
The data the scientists get from the CATs tags is “really incredible,” Winton said. The special tag records video of what the shark is seeing and doing.
These tags stay on a shark for 24 to 48 hours before they pop off, sending a satellite signal for the researchers to then go retrieve it from the water.
“It’s like riding on the back of the shark,” Winton said. “The tag is archiving data 20 times a second about the sharks’ depth and water temperature. It’s really a transformative technology.”
Meanwhile, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy had a “really big summer” expanding its education and outreach efforts in the community, said Education Director Marianne Long.
They were able to ramp up programming and provide more educational opportunities after a down 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The white shark expeditions took off this year. During those trips, people can “observe white sharks in their natural habitat,” Long said.
“It’s been really great to provide those learning experiences for families,” she added.
Also, the Shark Smart program had a very successful shark season, Long said. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy outreach team spoke to more than 2,200 beachgoers over the summer, answering questions about white shark activity.
The most frequent question from beachgoers is, “Were any sharks spotted at this beach today?”
“We tell them they can’t always see the sharks, and there might not be a sighting notification on the app,” Long said. “So we tell them to proceed with caution no matter what.”
Next year, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy is opening a new Shark Center in Provincetown, which will be in addition to the Chatham center. The Provincetown center will have different exhibits than Chatham, but it will all be directly related to their research efforts.
“How we tell the story will be done differently,” Long said, also adding, “It’s great to be part of the Provincetown community, and the whole new network of people to educate and work with.”
They’re aiming to open the Provincetown center for Memorial Day.
There will be a few sharks around into December and possibly one or two white sharks that will stay around all winter.
Nobody got killed or injured this season by a white shark, although there were plenty of them around.
The shark season will begin again this coming end of May or early June, 2022.
A lot more white sharks could have been tagged, but money is a limiting factor. -Tom
Are they tasty? Cod sharks?
Someday I hope they allow public access to live shark tracking. Or maybe they already do.
Here in Australia it’s Great White Shark season 24/7/365.
Where I grew up, Bull sharks in the river were the biggest danger and Great Whites were unheard of. Now there has been several Great White attacks over the past couple of years.
It’s good to see their numbers recover (I don’t want them to go extinct) but it does add to the pucker factor swimming at an un-netted beach these days.
Capt. Tom, I’m going to admit not knowing much about sharks other than they are dangerous to most humans.
What is this ‘Shark Season’ about?
Is it just to reduce their numbers in a certain area?
Sometimes wolves, feral hogs or adult pythons are hunted for that reason. I thought shark meat was poisonous to people.
It can be prepared so it isn’t.
Many ‘cheaper’ brands of frozen scallops and other seafood are actually shark meat.
About 15 years ago white sharks started showing up on the easterly Cape Cod beaches of Chatham, Orleans,Eastham.Wellfleet and Truro.
Prior to this both the seals and white shark were practically nonexistent in that area. But the Federal Govt. gave both species protection many years before, and the seal population exploded and the white sharks came in to eat them.
So every year more and more white sharks come into our area.
We now have a white shark season, and it runs from early June until the end of December.
It primarily affects bathers, swimmers, surfers, paddleboarders, Kayakers, or just about anyone who is in, on, or under the ocean waters. -Tom
Federal Lunacy
My opinion is a Bull shark is a bigger danger than a white shark, because a Bull shark makes up its mind more quickly to attack.
Unfortunately, a much larger white shark can destroy a person with one bite. - Tom
Ha. Back at ya mate. Here in southwest Florida, bull sharks in the river are most nasty
Never heard of that. Here in south Florida, the old timers talk about the restaurants using diced stingray as fake scallops. They even say it’s hard to tell the difference.
When I was stationed at Otis (Pave Paws, 6th MWS) I used to go to Sagamore Beach, Sandwich Beach, Veterans Memorial in Hyannisport, and, when I was dating this girl from Harwich, Nauset beach in Orleans. Never, ever saw a seal, let alone a shark. Caught lots of flounder on the Rt 28 bridge over Great Pond Falmouth. Caught a 40 pound striper in the Canal. That was the biggest sea creature I ever saw there.
I left in 1982. Musta been some quick breeding seals, then again, that was almost 40 years ago (God I’m old!).
If you were to go down to Nauset beach in Orleans in August or September, you might not get a chance to go swimming, as some days so many white sharks are spotted, the life guards close the beach down.
This white shark/seal problem has changed Cape Cod. - Tom
“We tell them they can’t always see the sharks, and there might not be a sighting notification on the app,” Long said. “So we tell them to proceed with caution no matter what.”
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“Amity”, as you know, means “friendship “.
I’ve heard that too.
I admire that response. That was succinct, concise, and directly to the point!
Me? I would have easily written something three times as long and half as understandable as your post.
Well done! (And hope you had a great Thanksgiving too...:)
Tom, are there any reports of sharks attacking the beaches facing the Nantucket Sound, or Cape Cod Bay?
I should think the huge tides in the bay would keep the sharks out. And at Yarmouth, Dennis, and Hyannis beaches, the waters are very shallow close to the shore.
Curious.
I am on the Cape Cod Bay side of the Cape. We have plenty of white sharks in our area on the Cape Cod Bay side, but they are harder to see because white sharks are primarily bottom cruisers.
On the Bay side the water is deeper, rockier, and darker, than on the sandy shallow water side of the east facing beaches on the other side of the Cape. Thus it is harder to spot them. But incidences and buoy reports show they are here. People reeling in striped bass have filmed the attacks where the white shark comes right out of the water, and people have run into them when the sharks go to the surface -Tom
Thanks, Tom. So it sounds like people are pretty safe on the South Beaches — and close to the shore on the Bay side.
The rocky features off the upper Cape Cod Bay and Plymouth Bay area marks the of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, of which Cape Cod is the more northern points.
Born and raised in Yarmouth, the coast plain’s terrain is marvelous for its beaches and shellfish.
Now that I live in Georgia, and they have the so-call “Gnat line”, that cuts through the middle of the state near Macon, Georgia. That marks the start of the Coastal Plain.
And the coastal plain is not so attractive in Georgia because of the huge gnat problem. When you combine the hot climate of Georgia and the gnat’s love of sandy soil, it’s an ideal climate for the growing of the gnats which buzz around everywhere and are a real quality of life issue.
On Cape Cod, the summer hot season is short enough that gnat don’t have a long enough season to be pests.
So that’s one of the principle attractions of Cape Cod — the outdoor life of marshlands and beaches without the insect issues. Sailing a BeetleCat in Lewis Bay as a boy was a wonderful thing growing up.
A nifty image of the Atlantic Coastal Plain is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_coastal_plain#/media/File:Atlantic_Coastal_Plain.svg
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