Posted on 09/06/2009 7:26:58 AM PDT by Libloather
3 great whites are ID’d off coast
Tags put on 2 sharks; some beaches closed
By Meghan E. Irons
Globe Staff / September 6, 2009
The fisherman had just one shot to mark the great white.
Captain Bill Chaprales walked to the front of his 22-foot harpoon vessel, raised the 12-foot-long tagging pole, and threw it purposefully onto the back side of the enormous shark, which was 4 to 5 feet below the surface.
Tagged.
“He did it in one shot,’’ said state biologist Greg Skomal, whose team tagged two great whites yesterday. “We don’t swing the bat unless it’s a strike. It’s got to be a perfect shot.’’
As Chatham officials announced they were closing all of the town’s East Side beaches, state marine biologists were pulling off the high-tech accomplishment out on the ocean.
The first shark was tagged at 9 a.m. near the southern tip of Monomoy Island, off Chatham. A second was tagged at 3:30 p.m. about a mile north of the first - each with a single move. A third was also spotted but not tagged.
“They were right around a 1,000 pounds apiece,’’ said Chaprales, a 58-year-old tuna fisherman and lobsterman from Marstons Mills, a village in Barnstable.
Chaprales said he had worked with biologists at the New England Aquarium years ago to tag other species of sharks and bluefin tuna.
“We’ve done this before,’’ he said. “It doesn’t hurt the sharks.’’
The tagging occurred days after officials set out to identify the species of five sharks seen about a mile off Monomoy Island last week. As of yesterday, marine scientists had identified three great white sharks in that area.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
That would be 1996, the story is on my website just over half way down the white shark page. - Tom
made me laugh
Get in the ocean, you lose your apex predator classification.
Whitey poisons all fish of color, donchaknow.
Troll one of these over them = problem solved.
Remember the hullabaloo over using the phrase "black hole" as a scientific term?
BTW, that reminds me that I am offended by the phrase "little white lie". I really need to complain to someone about that.
My thoughts exactly...
Whale shark.Largest fish on earth.
That must have been a sight for sore eyes.
I'd love to see their likes again.
: )
And both of them Virginians
I really can’t say how big the shark was, but it looked huge up close, so I headed back to the marina to drink beer.
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