Tracking Great Whites on Cape Cod

July 21, 2017 9:05 pm

CHATHAM, M.A. (WLNE) — Researchers from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy have tagged more than 100 Great White Sharks in the waters off of Cape Cod since 2009.

From June to October, the team goes out twice a week working to tag as many sharks as possible.

The team let ABC 6 News reporter Samantha Fenlon tag along on one of those research trips to get a better sense of the process.

"Today is one of our standard survey days where we go out and locate white sharks identify who those individuals are and then try to get tags in them," said Dr. Greg Skomal with the MA Division of Marine Fisheries.

The journey began last week around 9:00 a.m., in the waters next to the Chatham Bars Inn resort.

The first observation: dozens and dozens of seals.

Next up for the team, was checking on some of the buoys that hold the receivers that track the sharks.

Skomal explained that around 60 sharks have acoustic tags that these receivers pick up on.

The team took ABC6 News to check in on two of them.

"Anytime that one of those sharks swims within a couple of hundred yards of this receiver it detects what that shark is," said Skomal.

As for the process of actually getting the tags into the great whites, it is quite complex.

"It’s a coordinated team effort. We have a plane in the air that will locate sharks for us assuming he can go up there’s a little bit of fog today," said Skomal.

The team had to call it quits out in the water because of foggy weather, but just two days prior, the team was successful in tagging a great white.

The research team shared some footage with ABC6 News from a week before the trip. In the video you can see Skomal going into tag a shark. He explained how exactly the process works.

"It has to be in the top 2, 3 feet of the water column and then what I’m going to do is insert the tag dart into the base of the dorsal fin so I’ll use a very long tagging pole," said Skomal. "It’s critical to all the aspects of the research we are doing because we are very much interested in the abundance of these animals, how many are out here. Knowing their movement patterns helps us answer that question."

ABC6 News reporter Samantha Fenlon then asked; where are the majority of these mysterious creatures on the cape?

"We see that the outer cape in particular is a very important habitat for them. And, that because there are plenty of seals in the area," said Skomal.

As for reports that great whites are becoming more prevalent, Skomal insists there has been a lot of ‘over-hype’.

"We have seen a subtle increasing trend overtime over the last several years. I expect that will continue. But, this is no more unusual this summer than it was the summer before 2016, 2015, 2014," said Skomal.

If you’d like to track great whites you can download the Sharktivity app.

The Map and App were developed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, the Cape Cod National Seashore, and officials from Cape Cod and South Shore Towns.

For more information you can go to: http://www.atlanticwhiteshark.org/sharktivity-map/.