June 11, 2021 — There’s an 18-foot shark hanging in the air, waiting to greet you at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy Shark Center the next time you visit.
“Curly” is a life-sized replica of the largest recorded white shark tagged off Cape Cod. It’s one of many new features added to the Shark Center during a “pretty big renovation” that took place in winter 2020, says center manager Heather Ware.
The center is an arm of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, which has a mission to “support scientific research, improve public safety, and educate the community to inspire white shark conservation.”
But because of COVID-19 concerns, not nearly as many people got to hear that message, or see “Curly” or the rest of the renovation last summer as intended. Typically, the shark center would have had about 17,000 visitors in the summertime. Last year, just over 3,000 came by.