June 26, 2017 — A great white shark population boom is underway off Cape Cod, with as many as 150 expected in local waters this summer — and first responders are training to keep an eye out for the massive predators and deal with their traumatic bites.
“They have multiplied in numbers exponentially since I became chief,” said Orleans fire Chief Anthony Pike, who has led Orleans Fire and Rescue for the past three years. “Great white sharks comprise about 30 percent of my daily work right now, and I never, ever thought that would be a thing.”
Massachusetts Marine Fisheries scientist Gregory Skomal and others began studying the regional population of white sharks in 2014, when they counted 68 great whites. Last summer, that number was 147.
Skomal says 40 percent of the 141 sharks his research team tracked in 2015 returned to Cape waters in 2016. According to the Atlantic Shark Conservancy, there have already been eight confirmed great white sightings this month. Great whites typically patrol to the cool ocean waters off Chatham and other Cape towns between July and October, and Skomal — who has been with Marine Fisheries for 30 years — said the number of shark sightings has jumped over the past decade.
“For my first 20 years we never talked about sharks,” Skomal said.
Great whites travel to the Cape to prey on the area’s large population of gray seals. The last fatal shark attack in Massachusetts was in 1937, and if one of the animals does bite a human, Skomal said it’s most likely a case of “mistaken identity.”
“You know, biting the person thinking that it might be a normal prey item like a seal. Typically, the shark won’t eat the person,” Skomal said. “As a result, though, white sharks have very big jaws and sharp teeth, and cause traumatic injuries, and those kinds of traumatic injuries could lead to fatality.”