BIDDEFORD, Maine — August 6, 2013 — When video of what appears to be a great white shark chomping on a minke whale carcass off the coast of Boothbay Harbor circulated last week, the appearance in Maine waters of the fearsome ocean predator attracted a lot of attention.
That lobsterman’s footage was taken just a day before a fisherman on a Wells jetty reported seeing a shark there.
But Shannon Prendiville, an animal care technician at the University of New England’s Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center, didn’t need to watch video to see visual proof that Maine waters have their fair share of sharks. On Thursday, a young harbor seal the center’s staff affectionately named “Charleston Chew” arrived at the Biddeford facility with a semicircle of puncture wounds in her side.
Textbook shark bite marks.
Charleston had been discovered on the coast of Cape Elizabeth. Her rehabilitation center roommate, a yet unnamed young male seal of approximately the same age, was found the same day with severe-looking lower extremity gashes that are less obviously the results of triangular teeth, but Prendiville said center technicians believe his wound is also a shark bite.
The male seal was found in Wells.
Coincidence? Cue the “Jaws” music.
“That video last week caused quite a stir,” Prendiville said. “[But] we see a handful [of seals with shark attack wounds] each year. I don’t think we’re seeing a particularly large number this year. We don’t want to scare people by saying there are sharks everywhere, and they can’t go into the water.”
So while the rest of Maine was abuzz with talk of great whites, the seal scientists most likely to see shark attack victims were unsurprised, unimpressed and went about their business as usual.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News