How Cape Cod Deals With Her Sharks

Sharks have always been around Massachusetts. We have had fatal shark attacks in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and we are due for another one soon.

A bounty on seals, which decimated their numbers locally, was lifted in the 1980s. Seals gradually returned to Cape Cod in great numbers. All good so far...

But where the seals go, the sharks follow. It is simple Ocean Algebra. Seals live on Cape Cod, sharks eat seals, so therefore...

Not only do we get sharks, but we get the really big scary ones, the Great White Sharks.

We will burn a little time today discussing what Cape Cod is doing to protect her beachgoers.

She doesn't look that threatening, but a lifeguard is someone who spends her day watching the water. If a prominent dorsal fin is spotted or reported to her, she has the authority to order people out of the water. Short of a Chevy Chase-style Land Shark, you are safe once your feet are on dry ground.

I can see the lifeguard game undergoing radical change now that sharks are on their threat list. It may now be impossible to sit on a stand in a Hasselhoffian manner. Instead, it could easily become a game of tags, drones, fish-finders and fast-responding boats.

If someone was injured by a shark and still in the water, I would have great trepidation about having a teenager swim out to perform the rescue. I would be concerned for both the swimmer and the lifeguard.

No, the lifeguard being a state champion swimmer or the daughter of two Navy SEALS wouldn't matter much... she may swim like a fish, but not like OUR fish, as Quint once said. She would be Option B on the shark's Luncheon Specials menu.

If you have her offshore in a boat, she suddenly becomes much more effective. I would guess that she would be more effective in all aspects of lifeguarding. While there is a needle in a haystack feel to looking for a shark with a fish finder, it would probably be worth the investment. I feel the same way about drones.

The lifeguard would also be safer, like Morely. To be fair, I am not sure if lifeguards are even supposed to engage in a situation where someone has been attacked by a shark.

You'd probably still need to have lifeguards on the beach but it seems that you would definitely need to have some in boats.

This will cost money, but if they're filling the beach every day at $20 a carload, they have money.

Helping people be aware is important. Cape Cod gets a lot of tourists. Many of them are from inland Massachusetts, and are aware of the shark problem Cape Cod has.

Others are from different states, where a lobsterman seeing a shark off of Wellfleet doesn't make the evening news. They may have no idea what is out there, lurking just offshore.

There isn't much one can do once a shark attacks, but being aware of the situation can help one avoid such a scenario.

I took these flag shots at Nauset Beach. Sharks hang around there. Right under the flag is a handy poster explaining the shark presence and offering a few handy tips on how to not be some leviathan's snack.

You can't kill an attacking shark with knowledge, but you can avoid him, and that is probably a more realistic end goal.

Beyond sharing out knowledge, our remaining options are few. We have that guy who tags sharks, whiche gives us warning on some sharks. Non-tagged sharks would be stealth until they decided to show themselves.

Cape Cod has the wrong sort of beach for netting. Long, straight beaches are difficult for netting, and that's before we factor in our frequently rough seas. 

Beyond that, it is brutality. Like Dr. Hooper said, we have to kill the shark or cut off his food supply. Those are culls, of either sharks or seals or both. We would be public enemy number one to a lot of people, especially when Shark Week is ongoing.

In the end, our options seem to be limited to superpowering the lifeguards and being mindful of the sea.