Great white sharks spotted near Cape Cod
Almost a dozen great white sharks have been spotted near the shore of Cape Cod last week and swimming has been banned there ever since so that the sharks can be “hunted” down.
The researchers tracked down the great whites this weekend and, helped by pilots that spot the sharks from above, they send a patrol boat to the exact location, so that they can be tagged. One of the crew members from the boat shoots a satellite tag with a harpoon right into the dorsal fin of the shark, under the skin. The tag will provide information on the temperature, depth and light levels of the shark’s location all the time and is important to the scientists because they can find out where are the sharks coming from and why are they here. The appearance of the great whites near the shore of Cape Cod is not an isolated incident and many species of sharks have been spotted around the northeast beaches this summer leading to warnings and beach evacuations. Dr. Gregory Skomal, senior biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries says that the tags will send information to a satellite about the migratory path of the predator and this will give scientists important information on the animals’ life in the Atlantic Ocean, a part which has never been familiar to them. Scientists know the sharks are coming here to feed on the area’s exploding population of gray seals and that they not usually attack humans.
Skomal says that the sharks will probably stay here the rest of the summer and they will not leave until the temperature changes so that they will be able to tag most of them, this being a great opportunity to find out the habits of the animal. The tag will pop off the fin after six months and will float on the surface of the ocean, transmitting data to a satellite. Skomal carried out a similar experiment last year, when he managed to tag five great whites and observed that they migrate to Florida in the winter and then to the northeast coast in the summer. They come to Cape Cod for feeding on the exploding gray seal population, a once endangered mammal who has multiplied a lot on this part of the Atlantic Coast and are one of the sharks’ favorite meals. The white shark has been studied in other parts of the world, but not here in the Atlantic, so the tagging will prove to be very valuable for gather information on their habits.
