On a recent trip to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I was shocked by a headline in the local paper. On the front page, above the fold, it said, “Great Whites may be expanding their turf” in huge letters. Sharks were never an issue in the area when I vacationed there as a child, so I was interested to find out more about this hypothesis and why it was being put forward.

Apparently, during the second week in October, a great white shark was tracked in Wellfleet Harbor for two days before swimming towards Cape Cod bay. The tagged shark, named Katharine, is a 2,300 pound great white that has been tracked since August of 2013. During that time, Katharine has traveled more than 8,000 miles. The tracking device has been followed by the research vessel, Ocearch.

During her time near the Cape, the device “pinged” her location as close to the town pier as well as near Great Island. Despite the margin for error in the device, the research team believes that the data is conclusive that it very likely that Katherine was at the harbor.

Throughout the summer of 2014, the team identified 56 great whites in the Cape Cod area, and tagged 15 of them. This was part of a study of the sharks that migrate to the area to eat seals each year. The movement of Katherine into the Bay may be indicative of overcrowding of the usual hunting grounds and could result in sharks moving north towards the Bay in search of food. There have been other bay sightings, but this is the first tagged shark in the area.

Seals are attracted to Monomoy as well as Jeremy Point and Wellfleet harbor. Thousands are seen on the rocks in the sun. The natural order of things is that the sharks follow the seals. With more seals arriving near the bay, more shark sightings are bound to occur.

Katherine took a straight path from the middle of September off of the North Carolina shore to the Nantucket area, arriving September 27. She stopped in Monomoy, where the gray seal population is largest, and swam on. Just a short while later, she was off of Marconi Beach in Wellfleet to Provincetown and on to the bay side of Welfleet.

As more sharks arrive in the area, they get more daring and roam closer to shore in search of food. Researchers tag some of the sharks and have recently begun using underwater video techniques to note identifying marks such as scars, bites, and deformities from altercations with other sharks. They hope to use the data to estimate the average number of sharks that travel to the waters along Cape Cod and document any changes in the population. Some may be simply staying throughout the summer rather than feeding on seals and moving on.

Aside from Katherine, a pilot spotted four other sharks swimming near the bay. Beach Administrator Suzanne Thomas would like to use a system of buoys to alert beachgoers of tagged sharks in the area during beach season. The buoys would need to be equipped to respond to the tags.

Only ongoing research and time will tell whether great whites are moving…and staying…around the Cape.

It seems like every time a shark attack is reported, there is a violent response. Sharks are culled with baited drumlines and every solution seems to include maiming or killing sharks to protect beachgoers. Reactionary fans of the cull are happy to see Internet images of bloody sharks hanging from the drumlines. They have adopted the theory that only sharks or people can exist, not both, as the solution to any problem. But finally someone has come up with a different solution.

In Brazil, the city of Recife is “Brazil’s Venice” and was remarkably free of reports of shark attacks from the 1950s to 1992. For some inexplicable reason, that year triggered a spate of attacks, totaling 55 during 1992-2011. They needed to make their beaches safer and began to view other countries’ solutions. They looked at the drums, nets, and results of the culls. Nets end up killing other sea life, including dolphins, whales, and turtles. The systematic baited drum culls are extreme, and in the case of Hawaii (with systematic culls implemented from 1959-1976), did not actually reduce shark attacks.

A team was gathered in Recife, including university researchers. They found that shark attacks increased with the construction of a port complex in the area. The environmental impacts, including pollution, likely drove the change in shark behavior.

With the damage already done, how would Recife choose to handle the problem? They did not react with a cull or nets or guns. They decided to try something different. Apparently, when a shark is removed from an area that is hazardous to them, it won’t return. A test of the theory resulted in tagging tiger sharks and relocating them. They moved to deeper waters and moved north, away from Recife. Recife then adopted the Shark Monitoring Program of Recife (SMPR) for capturing and relocating sharks rather than capturing and killing them.

Shark attack incidents dropped by 97% during the following four years. Interestingly, during periods when the program could not operate due to funding difficulties, shark attacks began to escalate again.

The SMPR research team used drumlines and longlines to target aggressive sharks. They captured, tagged, and transported them in tanks with seawater to a different location. They used special care and treatment to reduce stress and damage to the sharks.

The difficulties lie in using this in widespread areas. It has been successful in the small stretch of Recife beach, but implementation in larger areas would incur huge expenses. The culls cover larger expanses of beach with less expense. Another problem would occur in areas that include shark nursing grounds or migration routes, which might motivate sharks to return after relocation.

The process may not be perfect for every scenario, but at least some areas are willing to look at ways to protect both beachgoers and sharks. We can only hope that this trend continues and scientific research will develop more injury and death-free methods of controlling shark attacks.

Mid-July, a great white shark washed up on a beach in Australia. It was dead, but with no apparent external injuries. The Western Australian Department of Fisheries investigated.

Two days prior to the shark’s appearance between Geraldton and Shark Bay, it was seen by tourists in the shallow water near Coronation Beach. The shark appeared to be swimming very near the surface, moving into towards shore where it thrashed on the sand in very shallow water before swimming back out to sea. The tourists published the video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvmOvkTwyPU

The shark apparently died when a sea lion became stuck in its throat. The unusual behaviors may have been attempts to dislodge the large blockage. The Department of Fisheries stated that the blockage could have damaged some of the shark’s organs or impaired its gills. It is also possible that in one of the attempts to rid itself of the sea lion in shallow water, the shark became stranded on shore.