Saving Seafood

Watch as a response team helps partially untangle a right whale

August 8, 2019 — A right whale received some extra help off the coast of Cape Cod as a response team partially disentangled him Aug. 2.

“Despite a horrific entanglement, the whale was highly mobile,” according to the Center for Coastal Studies.

This particular whale, a male, was initially discovered July 4 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada. He was spotted again July 19, and a team from the New England Aquarium was able to attach a telemetry buoy to the whale to track his movements, the center said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

CCS Team Frees Minke Whale from Entanglement, Shark

August 7, 2019 — The Center for Coastal Studies’ Marine Animal Entanglement Response Team freed an entangled minke whale last Thursday off Rockport and saved it from a great white shark.

The 18-foot whale was anchored by gear with rope through its mouth and around its tail.

The whale had a deep cut from the rope and minor bleeding had attracted a great white.

A video showing the extent of the entanglement can be viewed below.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MASSACHUSETTS: Shark detection technology gets quiet rollout on Outer Cape

August 5, 2019 — With little fanfare, shark detection technology on Cape Cod took a small step forward last month off Newcomb Hollow Beach, the site of last year’s fatal shark attack on body boarder Arthur Medici.

Cape Cod and regional public safety officials have been hoping for years to employ a kind of souped-up version of what they already have, an acoustic receiver attached to a buoy that can not only detect signals from tagged great white sharks but relay an instantaneous alert to lifeguards and beach administrators.

One such device was deployed off Newcomb Hollow, state shark researcher Gregory Skomal said, and two more to be placed at Head of the Meadow Beach in Truro and at Nauset Beach in Orleans.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

More than 150 great white shark sightings logged off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, since June

August 5, 2019 — There have been more than 150 great white shark sightings since June off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a popular East Coast vacation spot, according to scientists.

This week alone, more than 20 great white shark sightings logged off the Cape, prompting three days of beach closures in a row beginning Tuesday.

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s sharktivity app indicates that there have been more that 161 shark sightings off the coast of Massachusetts since June 1. The same shark can be spotted multiple times, scientists note.

Read the full story at NBC News

Great white sharks rule Cape Cod waters

August 1, 2019 — Scientists have begun a new research program around Cape Cod in Massachusetts, focusing on movements and behavior of a growing great white shark population, to reduce the increasing potential for interactions with humans.

Atlantic white sharks are the center of attention in the frenetic Cape Cod summer tourism season, as the combined resurgence of their primary food source, gray seals, and the shark population plays out.

The shark season has been early and active, with numerous sightings and several temporary beach closings ordered as a result in July. It’s been just one year since two shark attacks off cape beaches resulted in the first recorded fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936 when a body board rider was killed.

Barnstable County towns have invested in better warning and communication systems, pre-position first aid trauma kits and equipment to be prepared for another attack. One Nantucket-based group even asked local officials to seek federal action for changing the seals’ legal status under the Marine Mammal Protection Act — an echo of demands years ago in New England and Canada for the animals be culled in hunts.

Instead the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, the nonprofit Atlantic White Shark Conservancy based at Chatham, Mass. and other partners are in a new push to expand their study of white shark movements and behavior, with an emphasis on improving public safety in nearshore waters and channels where the animals hunt seals.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Climate Change and its Effect on Our Coastal Ecosystem

July 16, 2019 — Climate change and rapidly warming water mean a major impact on our coastal ecosystem.

The North Atlantic shelf, which includes our Connecticut shoreline and extends all the way up to the coastal waters of Canada, is warming faster 99 percent faster than our global oceans. Scientists are concerned for what the future holds.

“There’s a lot of concern about what climate change can do. The Gulf of Maine which is an incredibly productive body of water which includes Cape Cod and parts North is warming at an alarming rate. And it will be interesting to see how that changes the distribution of both the predator and prey,” said Dr. Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

In the case of great white sharks, climate change will likely affect the prey before the predator.

Read the full story at NBC Connecticut

Shark-infested waters: The ‘new normal’ on Cape Cod

July 3, 2019 — Lifeguards on Tuesday spotted a shark near the shore on Cape Cod and shut down a Wellfleet beach for an hour — the “new normal” for the popular tourist destination, less than a year after the first fatal shark attack there since 1936.

A great white shark lingered 40 yards off Marconi Beach in Wellfleet on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. Lifeguards closed the beach for one hour after the sighting — during one of the busiest Cape weeks of the year.

“It’s the new normal now,” said Tom King, a shark expert from Scituate. “For generations, everyone’s gone down to the beach and frolicked around in the salt water, going in and out of the water without any concerns. There were no sharks here.

“Now, we have company,” he added.

On Monday, at least 11 white sharks were spotted by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy research team on Cape Cod Bay. Researcher Greg Skomal tagged two of the sharks — a 9-footer and a 10-footer — the first sharks tagged this year.

Then on Tuesday, the senior biologist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries tagged a 12 1/2-foot white shark about a mile off Nauset Beach in Orleans.

Read the full story at The Boston Herald

Sharks and seals: A success story on Cape Cod

July 1, 2019 — Eighteen years ago, charter boat captain Joseph Fitzback and his customers held on tight as a 14-foot great white stripped a striped bass off a fishing line, then rocked the boat with a couple of exploratory bumps, 2 miles off Chatham’s Lighthouse Beach.

Television crews and reporters lined up to interview Fitzback, but as the numbers of seals, and the sharks pursuing them, have increased, such interactions are almost commonplace. In a relatively short time the Cape has evolved from ocean playground to wilderness experience, and today Fitzback’s story might get little more than a few hits on social media.

By now, the first of perhaps hundreds of great whites, the largest such aggregation on the East Coast, have returned to the Cape for the summer from their winter grounds to the south. They are hunting a gray seal population that has exploded from almost zero in the 1970s to nearly 30,000, possibly as many as 50,000, today, depending on the science you choose to believe.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Watching Whales Sensibly for Ten Years June 26, 2019

June 27, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

As humpback whales make their way back to New England and Mid-Atlantic waters from their winter breeding grounds, whale watch companies’ seasons are swinging into high gear along the Atlantic coast. Marine wildlife viewing tours are one of the highest revenue-producing tourism industries in the northeast, with more than one million whale watchers in New England alone.

This year we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Whale SENSE, a program that promotes responsible whale watching practices and ocean conservation. The goal of Whale SENSE is to allow people to experience these majestic creatures in their natural habitat, while respecting their space and not interfering with their natural behaviors.

Whale SENSE began in 2009 with three Cape Cod, Massachusetts companies. NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Region, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, and Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary developed the program, in which whale watch companies agree to annual training of all naturalists and captains, an annual evaluation of the company’s behavior around whales, and completion of an annual stewardship project.

Participants in the program use a Whale SENSE logo on their promotional materials, and are listed on the Whale SENSE website. By choosing a Whale SENSE company, passengers know that they are making a responsible choice that benefits the whales and the marine environment as a whole.

Read the full release here

New Study to Aims to Keep Beachgoers Safe From Great Whites

June 20, 2019 — Researchers on Cape Cod are launching a new study focused on the hunting and feeding habits of the region’s great white sharks following last year’s two attacks on humans.

Greg Skomal, a state marine biologist leading the effort, says the hope is to contribute critical information to the ongoing debate over how to keep Cape beachgoers safe.

The new research calls for placing sophisticated tags on sharks to track their swimming speed, depth and body position in the water.

Read the full story at NBC Boston