Cape leaders look for solution to increased shark sightings

September 18, 2018 12:23 pm

CAPE COD, M.A. (WLNE) — We’ve seen them through out the summer; Video after video of shark encounters off the Massachusetts and Rhode Island coasts.

But this weekend, a deadly encounter occurred off the Cape – the first in the Bay State in over 80 years.

“This is a horrible tragedy,” said Dr. Greg Skomal, a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

“No one wants a shark attack of any kind,” said Skomal, “and a fatal attack is the worst kind.”

After studying the case, Dr. Skomal thinks he knows the culprit in last weekend’s deadly attack.

“With a high level of confidence, I can say that it was a great white shark that attacked this young man,” he said.

The favorite meal of white sharks? Seals.

“We’ve got sharks that are trying to attack seals and they are overlapping with humans,” Skomal explained.

A Barnstable County commissioner is now focused on making the Cape less attractive to sharks, and has suggested the idea of culling the seal population, so sharks quit coming back for an easy meal.

But seals are federally protected, and hunting them is illegal.

“This is a national seashore – it’s a wild environment,” explained Brian Carlstrom with the Cape Cod National Seashore. “I don’t think that’s an appropriate response at all.”

So for the time being, there is no real solution to the shark situation, other than staying out of the water altogether.

Experts insist that despite the shark sightings this summer, shark-human interaction is extremely rare, and sharks do not attack humans unless they are provoked or mistake them for another food source.