Shark tourism grows on Massachusetts coast
CHATHAM, Mass. — There’s no ominous music, no telltale fin breaking the surface as the powerful silhouette of a great white shark glides alongside the small tour boat off Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
Michael Simard crouches low and points a finger in the direction of the roughly 10-foot predator cruising in the glassy water below.
The 48-year-old construction foreman from Cambridge, Mass., glances back at his partner, Penny Antonoglou, who dutifully pulls out her smartphone while he holds the pose. Smile. Click.
“It’s awe-inspiring, really,” Simard said after the tour, where they spotted at least six great whites. “I didn’t realize how graceful they were. It does put it into perspective that this is their element, and we just share it with them.”
Three summers after Cape Cod saw two great white shark attacks on humans — including the state’s first fatal attack since 1936 — the popular tourist destination south of Boston is showing signs it’s slowly, tentatively embracing its shark-y reputation.
A small but growing group of charter boat operators are offering great white shark tours in a region where whale and seal watching excursions have long been a tourist rite of passage.
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, a prominent nonprofit shark research organization, is among those that have jumped into the shark ecotourism game. It’s also renovated its Shark Center, a family-friendly museum showcasing its research into the local shark population, and is building another educational outpost set to open next summer in the bustling tourist center of Provincetown.
Elsewhere, local shark-themed merchandisers are reporting brisk businesses, even as the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted parts of the region’s tourism industry. Cape Cod hosts about 4 million visitors a year, who bring in more than $1 billion in tourism spending and support thousands of jobs.
“It feels like we’re on the trajectory of it being a point of pride for Cape Cod,” said Patrick Clarke, owner of the jewelry company Cape Clasp, of the region’s white sharks. “A lot of the initial fear and hysteria was the fear of the unknown, but we’re learning more and more about them every year.”
Clarke makes a range of jewelry featuring whales, turtles and other marine life but says the shark-themed pieces — specifically a bracelet made from marine-grade cord held together by a great white shark-shaped sterling silver clasp — are consistently his top sellers.
In Chatham, a hub of the local shark tourism industry, a company that started selling popular stickers of Cape Cod in the shape of a great white shark some seven years ago has taken off as the local shark population has also come into its own.
Kristina Manter says Cape Shark, the apparel company she co-owns with her boyfriend, opened a brick-and-mortar storefront on Main Street last summer to sell a range of hoodies, sweatpants, T-shirts and other clothing adorned with the logo.
“We’re not just popping up because we saw the tourism. We’ve been around because we’ve loved the sharks and believed in their conservation,” Manter says. “It just kind of fell together perfectly.”
There’s no definitive tally for how much shark-related tourism contributes to the roughly 65-mile peninsula’s economy, but its growth is helping stretch the tourist season into the fall, as peak shark sightings happen in August and September, says Paul Niedzwiecki, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.
Indeed, dozens of beaches have temporarily closed in recent weeks after sharks were spotted as close as 30 feet from some of the Cape’s most famous stretches of sand. Shark researchers say they expect to be out tagging and observing the predators into November, if the weather permits.