Cranberry County Magazine was in the house last week (2013 or so) when Dr. Gregory Skomal spoke at the Duxbury Performing Arts Center, or whatever they call the auditorium in a Duxbury High School that used to be so familiar to me.
He was there thanks to the efforts of Jack Kent at Bayside Marine, via the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. There were around 100 people in the crowd, which isn't bad on a snowy Thursday night.
Dr. Skomal isn't one of those doctors who can take out your appendix, psychoanalyze your childhood or implant larger breasts onto you. Nope, he's a shark guy, the big fish in the Massachusetts shark study business.
If you saw reports of Great White Sharks being tagged off of Chatham for the last few summers, Dr. Skomal was the man with the harpoon. He tags the sharks with a variety of tracers and records their movements. His research allows us to get somewhat of a grip on what I reluctantly call the Shark Problem.
It's not really a problem. "Sharks coming back to Massachusetts" is a sign that our ecosystem is healthy. It's just that this healthy ecosystem has what they call an apex predator at one end of it. This apex predator can appear out of nowhere and tear a swimmer in half. That's stretching "healthy" a bit. However, 10000% of all shark attacks on man happen in the environment of the shark, where the human is the intruder and sort of gets what he has coming to him.
But the key to understanding these things is to study them, and Dr. Skomal is in the business of learning about sharks. When he goes to Duxbury and speaks for 2 hours, he is then in the business of teaching us about sharks.
I didn't videotape or anything, so I'll just go through some highlights of his speech, as well as some of the fascinatin'-and-fun fish facts I unearthed prepping this article:
- We've been chasing Dr. Skomal for an interview for 2 years, back from when we were with Cape Cod TODAY. He wasn't being shady, we'd just always ask him during his peak activity periods. He promised us, in an email, that he'd get back to us in the winter, and he was as good as his word. I got ten minutes alone with him, even after I started asking my stupid questions. I did buy a hat, so I didn't totally waste his time.
- I barely resisted the urge to cut off one of his answers with "Love to prove that, wouldn't ya? Get your name in the National Geographic."
- Sharks are here for one reason. They eat seals. After that, it becomes, as we say, pure algebra... sharks eat seals, seals live on Cape Cod, so therefore....
- Seals are not the exclusive food of sharks. Many of the tagged sharks end up in the middle of the ocean, where no seals are found. They're eating something out there, and it most likely isn't Seal Jerky that they carry on long trips.
- There is no way to know exactly how many GWS can be found on Cape Cod. Dr. Skomal tagged 68 this summer, 43 of them males.
- From what I gather, Dr. Skomal gets shark sightings from the air, closes in on the GWS aboard a fishing boat, and applies the tags with a modified harpoon.
- He uses 3 different types of tags, and even as I type this, I'm not sure if I remember all of them. My notes got messed up during the blizzard, and I hadn't saved them. He uses a tag that is read by a bouy, he uses one that is read like GPS by a satellite and he uses another one that pops off the shark and contains his info.
- He also will put a camera on the sharks, and even has a torpedo-looking thing that will follow a tagged shark. He needs some Discovery Channel money for this project, however. At least one shark tried to eat it.
- The tagged sharks get names. Mary Lee, Weezie, a KIA soldier who I don't want to disrespect by mauling his name without my notes, Katharine, and so forth.
- You can name one yourself for $1000. The money goes to support research. It would suck to lose a relative to a shark attack, and then find out that the shark in question was named "Nomar," "Da'Quan," "Hugh G. Rection," or "Big Toothy."
- No, "Mary Lee" wasn't named for the Quint limerick from Jaws. I asked, and it was named after someone's Mom. Same goes for Weezie, who I thought might have been named by a fan of The Jeffersons.
- Sharks are not unusual in Cape Cod Bay. You can see that a monster was caught off Duxbury (in February, nonetheless) in the 1930s. One of the three fatal shark attacks on Massachusetts people happened off Scituate, and one of the remaining two went down even further north, in Boston Harbor. A fatal shark attack went down off of Mattapoisett in the 1930s. The most recent death was off the Outer Cape.
- Rhode Island and Connecticut have each had one fatal attack I could find anything about. The first white guy (I assume many Native Americans were devoured at some point, but they don't put that history anywhere that Google could find) to get a Sharkin' in the times of our forefathers was actually swimming in the East River when "the devil appeared, in the form of a fish" to bring the pain.
- New Jersey has had as many shark deaths in a month as Massachusetts has in her recorded history until 2018.
- Sharks don't mature until their 20s and 30s, and they can live 70 years.
- Expect to get more GWS sightings in Cape Cod Bay. The seal population on Cape Cod is exploding, and the seals diffuse into the neighboring waters. Where the seals go, the sharks follow. Duxbury has long supported a small seal population, and it is expected to grow as Cape Cod's seals spread out.
- A shark off of Duxbury Beach isn't sick, lost, too old to hunt normally, or even out of his element. It's exactly where he belongs, and he's doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing.
- If we look at Chatham as the big city for Massachusetts sharks, Duxbury would serve pretty much the same suburban purpose to sharks that it does to humans.... a less populated location, good scenery, tasty seafood, and the occasional kayaker.
- Duxbury has recently (the last ten years or so) been host to a large Sand Tiger Shark population. The STS is a frightening shark, a toothy fellow who can grow to 9 feet long. They are docile, and any attacks on humans are rare. They are usually associated with fishing or feeding. The STS has a mouth that is too small to cause a human fatality, but it could take some fingers off your hand.
- Old-timers say the ST sharks weren't around Duxbury until recently, although I had heard tales of sharks in the back marshes as a child. Sand Tiger Sharks are frequently caught off of the Powder Point Bridge.
- I had a dogfish wash into my cellar after the Halloween Gale of 1991.
- The titular shark character from the Jaws franchise is probably the most well-known fictional New Englander. Really, who else is in his league? Captain Ahab? Hester Prynne? The Pina Colada Song protagonist? Carrie? Spenser For Hire? Sam Malone? OK, maybe Sam Malone, but I'm still betting on Ol' Toothy.
- The shark from the Jaws novel was actually terrorizing a fictional Long Island community, but the movie made him a New Englander. Doesn't quite make up for Babe Ruth, but it's a start.
- Dr. Hooper was off the mark with his Territoriality theory, although the sharks as a species are now territorial to Cape Cod and eventually Duxbury. True territoriality would involve an individual shark driving away the other sharks, which I guess doesn't happen. Sharks have to move to breathe, and that movement sort of trumps the desire to hang around in one place.
- There are two kinds of shark attacks. One is Exploratory, where the human is some tasty looking but exotic menu item for a shark that he has a little nibble of. Granted, that little nibble might tear off your leg, but it also generally voids the human as a food source. The Truro attack on a boogie boarder was one of these types.
- The other attack has a name which I forgot, but it is basically when the shark is All In on the attack, and hits at full speed with a wide-open-mouth CHOMP. The Plymouth attack, which left dental records on a pretty solid kayak that even the OJ prosecution could get a conviction with, was one of these.
- Professionals like Dr. Skomal refer to attacks on humans as "interactions."
- The chances of a shark interacting with you are less than you being hit by lightning or winning the Powerball. Even an increased shark presence in Cape Cod Bay won't raise those odds much.
- If you want to lower your chances, there are a few rational things you can do:
One, do nothing at all seal-like, and don't even go near seals.
Two, try to not go too deep in the water, as sharks like to strike from below. Neither of our recent attack victims (nor any of the historical ones I read about) had any idea a shark was around until it bit them.
Three, don't swim at dawn, dusk, or dark. This is when sharks hunt the most.
Four, don't swim near surfcasters or boats fishing close to shore.
"Five" could very well be "Swim with people who are fatter than you." I couldn't pin Dr. Skomal down with this one, but he didn't deny it outright. A good way to view it would be "It makes perfect sense, but the limited data doesn't support a trend in that direction."
- Wondering about racial bias in shark attacks? New England and New York have had 7 fatal shark attacks I found records of, and two non-lethal ones. At least one (a Connecticut one) and maybe another (the Rhode Island one) involved black people, and I seem to remember the Truro victim having a name similar to my lawyer's, if you catch my drift.
- Call the ratio of attacks on blacks as 1.5 attacks out of 6, which I think is 25%. This is disproportionate to the US black racial ratio of 15%, and even more so when factoring in that white people probably go to the beach in greater numbers. I have no records of fishermen who suffered shark bites, although that would probably up the Portuguese numbers in the equation, perhaps substantially.
- Two attacks (Connecticut and Mattapoisett) were on children swimming out to meet a boat. Two other attacks (Scituate and Boston) involved a shark deliberately swamping a small boat to dislodge the people in it. Three attacks (Wellfleet, Manomet and Truro) were on people using either kayaks or boogie boards.
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| Caught off the Gurnet |
- The New York attack was in a river, while the Rhode Island one was a bit offshore. Scituate and Boston were far (5 miles in the Scituate case) offshore. Truro was 400 yards offshore, while Manomet was maybe 100 yards offshore. Wellfleet was within a good Hail Mary throw of shore. The attack last September was 50 yards off Wellfleet.
- Dr. Skomal is interested in doing research on sharks in Cape Cod Bay. He'd have loved to have gotten a tag in that Manomet shark. Duxbury residents shouldn't feel neglected, as Dr. Skomal said that the sudden (?) presence of Great White Sharks along South Shore beaches is an important factor in the studies of the region as a whole.
- Any kid who loves Shark Week (which, at last count, was all of them) views Dr. Skomal as a rock star. He gave out several autographs to kids, many of whom looked star-struck.
- For all of those times you see reports about how American kids are fat, stupid X-Boxers, know that I saw kids under 5 feet tall asking Dr. Skomal about how sharks regulate the pressure of deep-sea dives, whether Duxbury ever had Megladon (if you ask Dr.Skomal about Megladons, he immediately says "Next Question," even to a 12 year old), and detailed logistical questions about patrolling South Shore beaches with drone cameras.
- The children asked these intelligent questions right after I finished my Weezie Jefferson question, in case you were wondering about Generation X vs the Millenials.
- Sharks will almost certainly merge with technology to change the nature of lifeguarding. Gone or lessened in importance will be some kid on a beach chair, New lifeguards may be fanned out 100 yards on small boats, equipped with fishfinders, radios, and a siren. Drones would also be invaluable, although any idea we came up with was far from foolproof.
- Closing beaches after a shark attack would be near-ineffective, as seals don't obey beach closures.
- Duxbury, with her long and uninhabited coastline, will be a prime spot for increased seal activity. This also means that they will see increased Monster Shark activity. Duxbury Beach is long and straight, exactly the sort of beach that is difficult to protect with shark netting.
- Dr. Skomal called Bullship on several of my get-rich-quick schemes that involved Great White Sharks. It would be very difficult to trap one in a bay as a tourist attraction. They get stuck in bays and ponds now and then, but it's impossible to know when they would do so. Once you had one, it would be difficult to feed it. You'd have to catch several seals a month, which is illegal. Even my own twisted research couldn't find out how many homeless people it would take to feed a shark. The shark wouldn't get enough fish to eat in, say, Buttermilk Bay.
- I also found out that, even if we trapped the shark and got him dependent on us for food, it would be unlikely that we could get him to perform tricks for us. I could find no records about a shark ever having been taught tricks.
- I did ask Dr. Skomal if he had ever met a friendly, seems-to-enjoy-being-around-people Great White Shark. He had never met one, although some sharks do associate boats with food. No, soft-bite attacks on humans are not a case of the shark saying "Hello" with a bit too much enthusiasm, like when your happy German Shepherd greets you after a day of work.
- I had a sense that he would get offended by my questions about catching a GWS from shore with a chain attached to a Jeep, so I left that one unasked. I can interview a fisherman some day to get that story written for a different article.
- I have a pretty good smoking habit, while my old friend Beth is a tri-athlete. About 3 summers ago, she passed me on the Might Die Suddenly scale, 100% because of the GWS presence in the area. I fully expect a triathalon attack in the future, and would be amazed if Duxbury were chosen as the site of a triathalon next summer.
- Most sharks are snowbirds, in that they summer up here before returning to the SE USA coast for winter. Some sharks hang around well into the winter.
- Props to Dr. Skomal, Bayside Marine, and the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.
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