Free Republic

SCITUATE — A minke whale carcass was found Monday afternoon in the surf at Humarock Beach, making for the fourth found in the region this summer. At the beach, New England Aquarium’s marine animal rescue team found the carcass of a 22-foot-long sub-adult. The whale is believed to have died within the last few days. The carcass had been significantly scavenged by sharks. A full necropsy couldn’t be performed because of the amount of tissue that had been eaten, but the good condition of the skin on the pectoral fins and back indicated that the whale had died recently. There...

A Scituate man reeled in a 624-pound mako shark Thursday, possibly breaking the record for the biggest male mako ever caught, a biologist said. “I’ve caught a million sharks before, but never anything this feisty,” said Taylor Sears, 20, a Massachusetts Maritime Academy junior who said he fishes every day of the summer. Greg Skomal, a shark specialist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, said the 10-foot fish is the largest male mako shark ever to be recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, and appears to be the largest male ever caught. “We didn’t think they got this big, basically,”...