Researchers keep trying to forecast great whites in the Cape
As hungry great white sharks return to the Cape looking for chubby seals this summer and fall, Atlantic White Shark Conservancy researchers keep trying to figure out exactly when and where the apex predators hunt for their meals near the shore.
The ultimate goal from the shark scientists’ ongoing studies is to enhance public safety, the researchers said Wednesday as they previewed the Cape’s white shark season with beachgoers flocking to the coast ahead of the Fourth of July.
“We’re trying to find patterns in behavior,” Massachusetts Division of Marine
Fisheries marine biologist Greg Skomal said at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s Shark Center in Chatham.
“Patterns lead to statistical predictability and ultimately hopefully forecasting, so that we can ultimately say, ‘In this particular area at this time of day, there might be white sharks, there might not be white sharks,'” Skomal added. “We’re hoping that information will ultimately enhance public safety, so we’re using a variety of tools to do that.”
The researchers have tagged close to 300 white sharks since 2010, and they have deployed receivers throughout the coastline. Overall, the scientists have identified more than 500 individual white sharks that have visited the waters off of the Cape.
The researchers have also conducted aerial observations of the sharks, and they’re adding drones this summer.
“All the research we’re doing is to learn more about white sharks and how they’re using nearshore waters off the coast, so that we can provide that information to the towns, to the beach managers, so they can use that to enhance their public safety messaging,” AWSC Staff Scientist Megan Winton said.
Some of the white sharks just “pop in,” Skomal said, and then shoot up to Canada, while others “might actually rent a room” and stay for the summer.
Trying to figure out where and when the sharks hunt seals can be quite challenging, the researchers said.
“There’s so much individual variability in these species that finding patterns is really difficult,” Skomal said.
The last shark attack happened in September 2018 when 26-year-old Arthur Medici became the state’s first shark attack fatality in 82 years. He was bitten at Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet.
Some beachgoers have been steering clear of the ocean because of the rise in sharks, Skomal said.
“We see a lot of people who really don’t go in over their waist,” he added. “They go into the water to cool off, or they don’t go in the water at all, so we do see some changes in behavior.”