Expert anticipates 'dozens to hundreds' of white sharks this season after first sighting off Cape Cod
PROVINCETOWN - They had set out to sea hoping for a glimpse of a whale. Instead, they got a close encounter with a great white shark. "Honestly, I was just speechless. I was even shaking a little bit as I was taking photographs. The adrenaline was running, and it's something I've always wanted to see," said Andrea Spence. She was the naturalist on board the Dolphin Fleet Whale Watch cruise that came up on the shark feasting on a seal off the coast of Provincetown Saturday.
"You could see its teeth. Its mouth was open as it came up for that last bit of seal there, so that's when we had a lot of gasping by passengers on the boat for sure," said Spence. It's something she's never seen before, and it happened before Memorial Day.
It's a story that had some beachgoers cautious Monday. "We've been lucky where we haven't had a lot of shark attacks," said retired fisherman John Mahoney. He says he's seen it all out there, sharks, seals, and countless sea creatures. Asked if he would ever go swimming in the ocean? "No, I don't... It's just not worth it," he said.
"We definitely expect to see white sharks in May," said Massachusetts' leading shark expert Dr. Greg Skomal. He confirms grey seals and white sharks are in the waters off New England, and that's normal.
While this is the first human sighting of a great white in Massachusetts this year, he forecasts bigger numbers from July to October. "I anticipate that dozens to hundreds of white sharks will move into Massachusetts waters over the course of that period. They will not be here at the same time, but they will move through this area," he said.
Scientists with the New England Aquarium are urging people to download the Sharktivity app and to report shark sightings through the app. Experts say that heading into Memorial Day Weekend, the public safety risk is slim, but in about a month on the outer Cape, swimmers should stay in shallow water. "I feel really lucky that we were able to witness that out there," said Spence. "It could be a once in a lifetime thing. I may never see that again."
