August 14, 2013 — CHATHAM, Mass. — Michael McCallister, a fisheries scientist from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, believed he might have a chance to use his ultrasound wand Tuesday, running it down the sides of a pregnant great white, hoping for a glimpse of her pups.
Instead, McCallister wielded a modified roofing tool pulping sardines in a 5-gallon bucket, turning them into brown mush that he emptied into a barrel of fish heads. Seawater sluiced through the barrel and emptied into the sea creating a slick of fish oil and bits that fanned out behind the stern of the 167-foot modified Alaskan crab boat OCEARCH.
Chum is used to attract sharks so that they can be caught, but Tuesday was the 10th day of fishing on the great white shark expedition off Chatham without catching one of the large predators that hunt the seals that frequent the Northeast's largest gray seal colony. The OCEARCH has been anchored within sight of Monomoy for more than two weeks, astride what scientists hoped was a great white shark highway.
Expedition leader Chris Fischer pointed to an orange buoy that marked the submerged receiver that had recorded the most frequent hits from acoustic tags on great whites.
"We're following the data," Fischer said. Although they had encountered 10 white sharks, they proved to be picky eaters.
"They don't want anything to do with the bait," Fischer said, before stepping off the mother ship onto a 28-foot vessel that would search for sharks closer to shore.
The OCEARCH expedition, which is funded mainly by Caterpillar Tractors, has had success elsewhere. In 2011, they tagged more than 40 great whites off South Africa. Last winter, they placed electronic trackers on one shark near Jacksonville, Fla., and two in Chatham last summer.
But the Chatham sharks were not attracted to baited hooks and were hooked by hand as they passed the boat. In retrospect, Fischer felt he may have misjudged his success in other countries where cage diving is allowed and is prevalent and where sharks are accustomed to having bait and chum in the water.
"It's like ringing a dinner bell," he said.
Fischer still has plenty of time with three weeks remaining on the permit that allows him to catch and tag sharks in state waters. And he wouldn't rule out the option of asking for an extension to the permit.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times