(10-3-09) Gray heads began popping out of the sea shortly before low tide Wednesday. Soulful, steady eyes looked briefly at the handful of people armed with binoculars and cameras on the Cape Cod National Seashore, then disappeared silently beneath the waves.
Suddenly, dozens of 300- to 600-pound bulbous gray seals awkwardly lumbered onto an exposed sandbar, joining others already there. Within the hour, more than 100 were lolling and playfully slapping one another with their flippers at the newest, and one of the most publicly accessible, seal resting sites on Cape Cod. Some low tides, more than 300 animals “haul out’’ here.
Gray seals, once so hunted they all but disappeared from Northeast waters, are making a comeback off New England to both public delight and damnation. This summer, they were the bait blamed for luring great white sharks so close to Cape Cod’s swimming beaches that some had to be closed. Fishermen complain the seals eat too many valuable fish.