Great white sharks force closure of Massachusetts beaches

by Stevie Smith - Sep 7 2009, 16:30

If you took a refreshingly brisk dip in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Cod during the last few days, then thank your lucky stars you didn’t end up lodged down the gaping gullet of not one but two great white sharks spotted swimming in the area over Labor Day weekend.

According to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, each of the two graceful predators was tracked and tagged by attending officials on Saturday and Sunday.

It was also keen to point out that the respective eight foot and ten-foot sharks represented the very first time examples of the legendary great white had been tagged swimming in Atlantic waters.

State officials explained that the sightings and subsequent tagging process took place off the coast of Chatham, Massachusetts, which led to the closure of nearby public beaches and designated swimming areas including Chatham’s popular Lighthouse Beach.

With Chatham’s harbourmaster warning swimmers to avoid areas populated by seals, which often serve as prey for visiting sharks, other nearby beaches temporarily affected by the sightings include North Beach, South Beach, Hardings Beach and Nauset Beach.

The weekend’s shock appearance of the two great whites came only a few days after Marine Fisheries senior biologist Gregory Skomal revealed that up to five large sharks had been spotted off Monomoy Island, which is a National Wildlife Refuge situated just south of Cape Cod.

Duly tagged with satellite-based tracking technology, the Division of Marine Fisheries now hopes to gather some valuable information regarding the migratory patterns of the great white shark, which is rarely seen in the Massachusetts region.

“From a scientific perspective, it’s fantastic,” enthused Skomal in a Cape Cod Times report. “We’re pretty excited to be putting together the pieces of the puzzle.”

CNN reports that the state of Massachusetts has only experienced a total of four recorded shark attacks in its waters over the course of the last 340 years.

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