Duxbury Beach Hires Quint

After a contentious town meeting where some violence occurred, the village of Duxbury Beach will move aggressively against their Great White Shark population.

They will procure the services of noted shark hunter Captain Quint.

"Captain" is actually his first name, as long as your definition of "actually" hangs on asking Quint his first name and getting an answer of "Captain."

Rumors of Quint's untimely demise in a Martha's Vineyard shark interaction have been, as they say, greatly exaggerated.

Duxbury's shark population was thought to be non-existent, but numerous sightings in recent years culminated in a widely-seen video this week of various sea devils devouring a whale.

A shark attack in nearby Manomet a few years ago nearly offed two kayakers. That shark had been filmed by a state police helicopter the day before, off Duxbury. A fatal 1800s attack also went down off Scituate, far enough offshore that it was essentially off Duxbury.

It was feared that, when the whale carcass was removed, sharks would then be needing a food source, and realize it as they swam past the thousands of bathers at Duxbury's beaches.

Local officials were unapologetic regarding their decision to offer a blood-money contract on a protected species.

"Unlike Cape Cod, we won't send our people into the water while a limousine with teeth is lurking offshore," said Duxbury Beach Mayor Stephen Bowden. "While Cape Cod dithers, Duxbury Beach acts."

Terms of the deal with the shark hunter were undisclosed, and we were unable to determine if the Duxbury Beach Reservation funded the hiring as we go to press.

Quint is chumming off the shores of Duxbury Beach as you read this. He is unconcerned with protests over his lucrative mission.

Duxbury Beach is closed to swimming until the hunt us over.

He is at sea upon the Beyonce, as his prior boat, the Orca, is said to be damaged.

Quint doesn't plan to use harpoons on this shark. "I plan on drinking 17 Naragansetts and tricking the shark into eating a scuba tank, which I will then detonate with a high powered rifle."

"If that doesn't work, I'll lure the evil bastard over to Bug Light and electrocute him."

Sharks, Sunfish and Whales Off Duxbury Beach

Duxbury Beach is Coastline Crazy today as several benthic beasties are in action just off the shore.

Duxbury Beach was closed to swimming after a confirmed Great White Shark sighting. A source tells me that there may be two sharks. The confirmed sighting was down around the third crossover.

A whale carcass is floating near Brant Rock, and porkers like to feed on them. We could end up with more than two sharks if someone doesn't tow that ish out to sea.

The good news is that, with unlimited whale meat handy, the sharks will have full tummies and should have little interest in devouring humans.

A sunfish added to the confusion. Apparently unaware of the apex predator at the third crossover, he was flopping around about 20-100 yards off the Public Stairs.

When looking at this weak picture I took of him, understand before complaining that this was the best of the dozen that I took.

None of these creatures are unusual for the area.

Duxbury closed the beaches to swimming indefinitely. Cape Cod generally shuts down for just an hour for a sighting, but Duxbury:

 1) is not as accustomed to GWS sightings as Wellfleet is,

and

 2) unlike somewhere along the lines of Eastham, Duxbury isn't dependent on tourist dollars.

We'll be back with an update if need be.

Hang in there!

Can Killer Whales Scare Off Cape Cod's Sharks?

Cape Cod lives and dies with tourism, and we live better when tourists don't die here.

It seems fair enough. However, we can't guarantee your safety. We have sharks.

We had a tourist killed last summer by a shark. It happened at the very end of tourist season, so the economic effect was dulled somewhat. If someone gets a munching in June or July, it could destroy our economy. Tourists won't go where they might be devoured.

We spent the winter kicking ideas around. Shark nets and seal culls have been discussed, as has setting bait hooks to kill the Porkers. In the end, we did nothing.

Shark attacks are rare, and Massachusetts has only had a dozen or so in our white-guy history. 4 of them were fatal. Prior to last summer, the last fatality was in 1936, off of Mattapoisett. Scituate had one 100 years before that, with Boston Harbor getting one 100+ years before the Scituate one.

Ignoring the seal influx on Cape Cod, it is easy to say, "We get a fatality once a century, the next death will be in 2118 AD or so."

That is the action we took... hope for the best.

One idea not explored involves an Orca. Killer whales are perhaps the only thing in the sea (aside from Quint) that can kill a big white.

Killer Whales work together to herd a shark, eventually cornering it. They will slam into the shark, hold it upside down and eventually suffocate it. They will then eat the shark's liver.

An Orca is the world's only functional shark repellent. When Orcas show, sharks go. A tagged shark in an area (Cali) where Orcas killed a shark immediately dove to the bottom and swam 500 nonstop miles to Hawaii.

Added bonus: Orcas don't eat people. Unless you work at Sea World, you have the same chance of being bit by an Orca as you do of being born in a manger to a virgin. There has been only one.

Killer whales are not unheard of on Cape Cod. My man Don Wilding wrote a nice article on it. 1949-1959 saw several Orca attacks on pilot whales. The Pilots would beach themselves to escape the Orcas.

Hyannis, Dennis, Yarmouth and Wellfleet all witnessed attacks on Pilot Whales, either directly or by finding Pilots with huge, Orca-sized bites taken out of them.

An estimated 67 Orcas comprise the NW Atlantic population, which range from Newfoundland to Long Island. While Cape Cod sightings are rare, they do happen.

Orcas can kill and eat anything, including Blue Whales. However, Orcas in certain areas have specific diets, and tend to specialize in certain items.

NW Atlantic versions of the Orca split into two diet groups. One group subsists on seals and especially herring (Orcas at Sea World consume 50 pounds of herring a day). The other type goes after dolphins and whales.

Sharks are off Cape Cod for seals. Orcas are here for herring. The 1940s/50s whales (Editor's note: Killer Whales are actually dolphins, but the author gets lazy now and then) may have been the ones we want here to kill and scare away sharks, but the whales we get more often are interested in herring.

Massachusetts slaughtered our seal population long ago, although we have rebounded since then. The rebound brought sharks, but not Orcas.

Whales are more intelligent than sharks, and they are more social. Why they are slow to pick up on seals being off Cape Cod, I can only guess. Maybe they are creatures of habit, maybe they prefer Labrador.

You can't hire an Orca to police our shores, and even if we got a few here, there would be no way to keep them here.

The only thing we can do with Cape Cod Orcas is hope. Hope, as we saw last September, does not deter shark attacks. Once a Cape Cod shark attack gets on CNN, there goes our summer.