Cape to shape shark solutions
Board hears proposals to warn swimmers via speakers, drive seals off
The Barnstable County commissioners heard proposals Wednesday to make the beaches safer amid the ongoing great white shark crisis on Cape Cod.
“Right now, there is no practical way to let people know that there’s danger, there’s a shark in the vicinity,” said Bob McLaughlin of Acoustic Technology Incorporated Systems. “This is personal. These are my beaches, too.”
McLaughlin proposed an emergency notification system to protect swimmers from the death grip of a shark bite.
The speaker system uses a tone, siren and voice alert that can be heard for at least a mile when a shark is spotted, quickly informing swimmers to exit the water.
“Our system activates an alert to help people have precious seconds to get out of the water,” said McLaughlin, who added that the non-invasive technology is used at colleges, military bases and even alerted runners during the Boston Marathon bombing.
McLaughlin offered to install a temporary speaker on one Cape Cod beach for free to test it out, to which commissioners Ron Bergstrom, Ron Beaty and Mary Pat Flynn suggested he follow up with local officials.
The Wellfleet Concerned Citizen Coalition followed McLaughlin, presenting longtime Cape and Islands residents Crocker Snow and Peter Howell, who showed a video titled “Unintended Consequences” about the seal overpopulation on Muskeget Island, off Nantucket.
Howell suggested the Marine Mammal Protection Act be “strengthened” to address the overpopulation of seals. The act prohibits feeding, harassing, killing, hunting or capturing all marine mammals.
Howell and Snow said the act should be amended to allow for species like seals to be declared recovered, therefore losing their protections.
“What I’m really wary about is that there’s going to be more fatalities. … It’s going to happen,” said Snow, adding that other measures like non-lethal deterrents will also be essential in addition to changing the act.
Public comments streamed in after the presentations with one from Sharon Young, the marine mammal field director for the Humane Society.
Young said the MMPA does include a provision for a species to lose protected status if states petition for it, but she added seals and sharks draw in tourists.
“The Marine Life Center — we have seals, and whenever they turn one loose there’s a huge crowd on the beach cheering for the seal to go back to the ocean,” Young said.