Tag Archives: great white shark
Shark Stories Stir the Memories for Retired Lobsterman Brian Sawyer
The story of a shark attacking a seal off Pemaquid Point earlier in July caused little alarm but prompted a great deal of interest among local readers. New Harbor native Brian Sawyer took a particular interest, having played a role in a shark story that made the front page of The Lincoln County News in 1961.The front page of the July 27, 1961 edition featured a photo of the shark, hanging upside down at what is now Shaw’s Wharf in New Harbor. According to the article, “Man-eater caught off New (Harbor),” Gerald “Jerry” and Douglas Brackett harpooned the shark and hauled it aboard their 
28-foot lobster boat following a five-hour struggle. Bernard E. Skeed, then director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Biological Laboratory at Boothbay Harbor, confirmed it was a great white shark, “not common in Maine waters.” “Doug Brackett harvested it.” Sawyer said, who was 14 years old at the time. Photos, >click to read< 12:48
Fishing Boat Catches Great White Shark while dragging off Barnegat Inlet
Commercial fishermen never really know what they’re going to find when they pull up their nets, but Ocean County fisherman Timothy Brindley never expected what he found. Brindley and his crew of the Viking Rose were trawling out in the Atlantic Ocean just 2 1/2 miles off the coast of Barnegat Light when he saw a Great White Shark in his net as it was pulled out of the ocean.,, He works out of the Viking Village Commercial Fishing Dock on Long Beach Island which is home to over 40 commercial fishing boats. >photos, click to read< 07:32
Letter to the Editor: (and the rest of the world) Urging Action on Seal Population Control
The exploding seal population is a consequence of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, which allowed for the rapidly growing seal overpopulation. Seals attract great white sharks, which feed upon them and ferociously attack humans. We once had a thriving fishing industry, kept healthy in part by a bounty system of predator control. That ended in 1972 with the passage of the protection act, which not only lifted the bounties on fish-eating predators like seals, but placed them under perpetual protection, immune from mitigation. Now fully recovered, the seal population has grown beyond what any reasonable person would consider healthy. Ron Beaty >click to read< 07:15
‘Just Enjoy The Moment’: NJ Fishermen Thrilled By Close Encounter With Great White
A group of fishermen off the Jersey Shore coast had a close encounter with a great white shark that suddenly appeared Monday. The five Toms River fishermen were about 30 miles from the shore and nearing the end of a 13-hour day at sea, but the sight of a shark certainly woke them up. It was roughly 18-feet long, about 3,000 pounds and hungry.“When you’re out there in a boat like that with a fish that big, you feel very small,” Video, >click to read<15:54
As ‘Jaws’ turns 44, here are 44 things you didn’t know about the original blockbuster
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water… The movie, the story of a great white shark terrorising the shores of the fictional Amity Island, was plagued with production problems, but the ingenuity of Spielberg (just 27 at the time) and his crew in the face of adversity, made Jaws a masterclass in tension and the first summer blockbuster.,,, 5. Lee Marvin, Spielberg’s first choice for Quint, declined the role as he was on a sport fishing holiday He preferred that to making a “fishing movie”, so Robert Shaw got the part.,,, 11. Quint was partially based on local fisherman Craig Kingsbury, who taught Shaw how to speak like a whale-hunting sea captain. Some of Kingsbury’s dialogue ended up in the script, and he also played the ill-fated fisherman Ben Gardner, whose one-eyed head pops out of the >click to read<11:15
White sharks aren’t the issue. Gray seals are – amend the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act
Last summer’s white shark attacks off Cape Cod beaches, one resulting in the first human fatality in the state in over 80 years, highlight the fact that times change, our marine ecosystem is evolving, and laws need to adjust to these changing realities. However tragic those shark attacks are for the victims and their families, the white sharks are not the issue; they simply dramatize it. The ever-increasing population of gray seals is the issue.,, A realistic start to addressing this issue would be to amend the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act to provide for delisting recovered species, such as the gray seal. Admittedly, while delisting would not resolve the issues of controlling seal population growth or related white shark attacks, it would be a reasonable first step for the following reasons: >click to read<09:31
A Provincetown fisherman’s appraisal of the great white dilemma
It finally happened: two worlds collided. The great white shark world collided with the human world and the result was a man being bitten at Longnook Beach. We’re thankful he was saved and is recovering. But how did we get here? It started in 1972 with the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibits hunting or harassing marine mammals, including seals. Before this law fishing communities hunted seals for their pelts and to manage the herd, because they eat enough fish to threaten the livelihoods of commercial fishermen. There were actually payments made by fishing towns to anyone who brought in a seal nose. The threat to commercial fishing was seen as very real. With the 1972 law, the hunt was stopped and seals began reproducing at a far greater rate than was expected. >click to read<11:55
Giant great white ate its cousin during Sandbridge research expedition
When a Virginia Institute of Marine Science longline fishing survey caught a black tip shark on Friday, a much larger white shark couldn’t turn down an easy meal. Researchers just three and a half miles off Sandbridge were reeling in their 1.2-mile longline, equipped with 100 baited hooks, last week when a 12- to 13-foot great white showed up to see what all the fuss was about.,,VIMS began studying sharks in the mid-Atlantic in 1973 with its Shark Survey. It’s one of the longest running studies of shark populations in the world. The survey has shown a serious decline in shark numbers because of overfishing. That discovery led to the first shark management plan by NOAA Fisheries in 1993. >click to read<12:28
“It Just Consumed Me”
Normally, not something you want a shark scientist to say. But Eric Stroud is talking about his chemistry-lab quest for the ultimate shark repellent, which he appears to have found. The questions that remain: Does it work on the great white, the ocean’s most fearsome predator? And can a couple of rookie entrepreneurs get it to market? There’s a house in Mossel Bay, South Africa, high on a hill overlooking the Indian Ocean, five hours east of Cape Town, where shark nerds from around the world come to live each year. I arrived this past June, after a long day on a small boat watching great whites chasing roped tuna heads. click here to read the story 12:00
Surfers flee for their lives as ‘great white shark’ savagely attacks seal just yards from shore
Frantic surfers fled for their lives after suspected Great White Shark launched a savage attack on a seal just yards from show. A trail of blood could clearly be seen in the water as horrified onlookers were ushered off the sand and the beach was closed. A pair of desperate surfers, out on the ocean at Nauset beach in Orleans, America, frantically paddled to shore in the terrifying footage. Earlier this summer people heading to the beach in Cape Cod, Massachuesetts had been warned up to 150 great whites had been seen off the coastline – a huge boom in numbers. The numbers have been increasing over the past few years and has more than doubled since 2014. Video, click here to read the story! 10:27
Great White Shark Baby Boom Expected Off Montauk
There’s a baby boom of great white sharks expected in the coming months — and the massive mama sharks are about to head to the nursery, located off the coast of Montauk, for the big event. Last year, researchers discovered the first North Atlantic nursery for the fearsome predator in the waters off Montauk, and this year, with the baby sharks tagged, more information than ever before is available to the public, who’ve taken to avidly following the sharks on social media. Right now, according to The Virginian-Pilot, there’s a “shark party” just off the southeastern coast, with 11 sharks tagged by Ocearch.org pinging and revealing their locations via satellite. continue reading the article here 13:43
WA Fisheries shark research lacks competency
Greg Pickering said any study of great white shark numbers needed to involve veteran spearfishing and fishing enthusiasts as well as abalone divers and commercial fishermen. “I’ve got to question their competency,” said Mr Pickering, a veteran of 34 years as an abalone diver and spearfisherman who survived 10 hours of surgery to his face and chest after he was bitten by a great white shark during a dive 180km east of Esperance in 2013. “People have stopped listening to Fisheries because they keep saying, ‘Our data doesn’t show any increase in numbers’. But maybe it’s the way they collect their data. “I’ve been attacked by a shark twice, spent half my life in the water, kept records of everything I’ve seen on every dive since 1983 but I’ve never had a call or an email. “There are a lot of guys with 30 or 40 years in the field with significant information to contribute. They’re in the water every day. You can’t pay for that sort of field work. But (Fisheries) feel they don’t need to talk to us because we don’t have a letter in front of our name saying, ‘Doctor so and so’.” Read the story here 18:42
Great white shark named after Big Papi
A great white shark spotted off the coast of Cape Cod has been named after retiring Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz. The Boston Globe reported that researchers from the nonprofit Atlantic White Shark Conservancy announced Saturday they were naming the 15-foot male shark “Big Papi” in honor of Ortiz, who is known by that nickname. The great white was tagged Sept. 9 off the coast of Wellfleet by state biologist Greg Skomal during an excursion with the conservancy. “Big Papi” is one of 19 sharks tagged off the Cape Cod coast since the start of the summer. 19:11
Great white shark numbers off Massachusetts rose sharply last year
A big jump in the number of great white sharks seen off Massachusetts has given rise to a couple of compelling mysteries. Greg Skomal, senior marine fisheries scientist for the state government, tags great whites along the coast. He collaborates with researchers in Halifax who tag blue sharks and other species, and collect data from Skomal’s tags when they’re in Canadian waters. Skomal is still collecting this year’s data, so he can’t comment on it yet. But from mid-June to October in 2014, his team identified 68 individual white sharks off the eastern shore of Cape Cod. In the summer of 2015, that number increased to 141 individuals. There are still many questions left to answer, such as what proportion of the total existing population is being spotted off the coastline. “Is it 10 per cent, is it five per cent, is it 50 per cent?” he said. “We could be seeing just a fraction of what’s out here.” Read the rest here 09:13
Katherine the great white shark swimming off Grand Banks
A great white shark named Katherine spent most of the holiday season swimming near the Grand Banks off the south coast of Newfoundland. Marine research group Ocearch has been monitoring the shark’s location since August of 2013 with the help of a dorsal fin tracking device. The group says Katherine weighs more than 2,300 pounds and spans 14 feet in length. This is the second time the group has tracked a great white shark near Newfoundland. Read the article here 19:26
Virginia Beach fisherman on seeing great white: He could have eaten me like an aspirin
A Virginia Beach fisherman says he had a terrifying encounter with a great white shark last week two miles offshore near Sandbridge. Vince McKaney says the shark was stuck in his net. “I looked back in the boat and I saw this big body surface and a big eyeball,” McKaney said. “Then he opened his mouth, and I seen teeth.” The 35-year commercial fishing veteran said he was in disbelief. “I could have jumped in his mouth he would have eaten me like an aspirin, that’s how big he was. I would have cleared his teeth no problem,”,, Read the rest here 15:51
“Jaws” made great whites villains but great whites rebounding
“It’s a matter of relativity,” George Burgess said of the great white’s status. “There are in fact more today than there were 10 years ago.”“I don’t ever remember surfers and waders being bit like they are these days, because the commercial sharkers were thinning them down,” said Ron Rincones, a longtime fisherman and diver from Grant-Valkaria. “People are now being attacked. There’s a lot more people shark fishing these days on the surf, because there’s a lot more sharks.” Read the rest here 14:27
Canadian David McKendrick, who caught a real-life Jaws wishes he hadn’t
David McKendrick was 22 when he went fishing one August day off Prince Edward Island. Now he realizes the great white shark he brought in — one of the biggest ever landed — was a “magnificent creature.” On its release forty years ago this Saturday, the original summer blockbusters’ vilification of great white sharks as mindless man-eaters provoked a trophy-hunting frenzy. Filled with guilt and remorse, he wishes it had never happened. Read the rest here 19:27
Welcome to Ocean County, Mary Lee. 3,500-lbs. great white shark off Long Beach Island
Welcome to Ocean County, Mary Lee. The nearly 16-foot, 3,456-pound female great white shark (or Carcharodon carcharias, if you prefer the scientific term), which goes by the name Mary Lee, was last spotted off the southern end of Long Beach Island this morning after reaching the coast of New Jersey yesterday. The great white shark appears to trekking its way north along the New Jersey coastline, just a couple weeks away from Memorial Day Weekend and the kickoff to beach season. Read the rest here 12:30
An Opinion – How “Jaws” ruined everything for great white sharks
Christopher Neff, a lecturer in public policy at the University of Sydney, has been documenting the impacts of a more insidiously influential film: “Jaws,” (is that really a job?) “Jaws,” the 1975 classic that taught the world to fear the boat-stalking, man-eating “rogue shark.” Because, convincing as those ’70s-era special effects are, Neff argues that we’ve had a tough time distinguishing the fictional movie beast from the real thing. In truth, he says, no great white shark has ever acted like the one that terrorizes Amity Island. Read the rest here 15:53
Plymouth, Ma: GREAT WHITE SHARK ATTACKS KAYAKERS! It begins…
A great white shark attacked two kayakers off the Plymouth, Massachusetts, coast Wednesday evening at Manomet Point, authorities say. I am not one to say I told you so, BUT I TOLD YOU SO! It’s just a matter of time I said, and now it’s happened. It’s on now folks, the big net around the Cape to Boston, clubbing baby seals, all of it. Just call me Nostrahippie because I called this shit AGES AGO! Read the rest @ RealCapeHippie 21:06
Eastern U.S. and Canada: Great white shark population surging, study says
A report that scientists are calling one of the most comprehensive studies of great white sharks finds their numbers are surging in the ocean off the Eastern U.S. and Canada after decades of decline — bad news if you’re a seal, but something experts say shouldn’t instill fear in beachgoers this summer. Read more here 13:38
Lydia The Flying Great White Shark Puts Cornwall On Summer Alert
THE DAILY Star has chilling news: Lydia is coming to the UK. Lock up your flippers and stick a plug in the sink. The tabloids works in cycles. The first signs of the impending summer are, in order: a) Great White Shark Spotted off Coast b) Madeleine McCann spotted on land c) Lucy from Brighton spotted on beach d) Killer heatwave spotted in space. News is that Lydia was tagged by scientists. And she’s been recorded swimming in the mid Atlantic. Or as the Indy has it, flying: Read more here 08:18
Great white shark tracked to waters off Newfoundland – Shark tagged off coast of Florida now in Placentia Bay – Video
Researchers are tracking the movements of a great white shark that has made its way to Placentia Bay, Nfld. A group called Ocearch first caught and tagged the shark off the coast of Florida, naming it Lydia. more@cbcnews 22:51
CHATHAM: Experts tag last Great White shark of year off Cape
The fourth, and possibly last, great white shark to be fitted with a tracking device this year was tagged Thursday afternoon by a team of state researchers and fishermen just outside the inlet to Chatham Harbor. more@capecodtimes 08:35
FINALLY!! They Caught One.
The team of scientists and fishermen on the OCEARCH expedition caught and tagged this summer trip’s first great white shark on Thursday afternoon. The team had been anchored off Chatham’s Monomoy Island for 17 days and fished for great whites for 12 of those days with the intention of catching and tagging as many as 20. They have a state permit allowing them to catch great whites within three miles of shore throughout the month of August. more@capecodonline
Boothbay Harbor lobstermen report great white shark feasting on whale carcass – Video
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Casey told the BDN in a brief telephone interview Friday morning. “It was biting off chunks of the blubber. continued@BDN
Cape Cod: Shark safety: How much is too much?
capecodonline.com TRURO — On July 30, 2012, Denver businessman Christopher Myers had no clue he was about to swim into the history books as the first person in 76 years to be bitten by a great white shark in Massachusetts. If Myers were to return to Ballston Beach this summer, he’d see that little had changed. continued
