Cape Cod shark study expands to 5 beaches

Cape Cod great white shark researchers are expanding their study to five beaches, as they examine white shark behavior in shallow nearshore waters.

The Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown for the last three years has been analyzing sharks at Head of the Meadow Beach in Truro, and have since started studying sharks off Nauset Beach in Orleans last year.

Now after receiving a $386,000 award from the National Park Service, the Center for Coastal Studies will add three more Cape Cod National Seashore beaches to the study. The Shark Ecology Research Program will also receive an additional $75,000 from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

“This program developed directly out of questions the local community has over the re-emergence of the white shark population along the nearshore waters of Cape Cod,” said Shark Ecology Research Program Manager Bryan Legare.

“As we share space with sharks, seals, and other wildlife, the best course of action is to understand their role in the ecosystem through interdisciplinary science; to understand how these organisms use resources, move among to grow and survive in the habitats we share,” he added.

Legare is examining the relationship between white shark behavior and habitat use in the shallow nearshore waters to understand how sharks use the environment.

For the last three summers, Legare has deployed a dense array of acoustic receivers in a study area in Truro. He added a second array off Nauset Beach in 2020.

The receivers record the acoustic signal of previously-tagged white sharks as they pass through the area, allowing scientist to generate the tracks of individual white sharks.

Those tracks are then compared to detailed, three-dimensional images of the seabed collected during side-scan sonar surveys of the area by the Center’s Seafloor Mapping Program — as well as data on oceanographic conditions such as speed and direction of currents, tides, wave conditions and turbidity.

Analysis of the sharks’ movements determines which areas they prefer to travel through, at what time of day, and in what sea conditions. Researchers hope this work will help federal, state and local officials develop strategies to minimize potential interactions between humans and sharks.

Rich Delaney, Center for Coastal Studies president and CEO, said, “This is a terrific opportunity for Bryan and for the Center to add to our understanding of the marine ecology and to shed light on the factors that influence shark activity off our beaches.”