Showing posts with label great white shark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label great white shark. Show all posts

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Great White Shark Sighting Just Off Of Duxbury Beach

My man C.L. Smooth was at White Horse Beach for this picture, but that sign may need to go up off Duxbury Beach this morning...

It's swim at you own risk time in Deluxebury, as an as-yet-unconfirmed sighting of a Great White Shark went down off of Ocean Road North this morning.

The sighting was made by a boater. I could not confirm if it was a more sea-wary Fisherman type of boater. Either way, there's a 10-15 foot fish close enough to shore that the witness was able to assign a street name to his report.

Many fish are mistaken for the Great White. Basking Sharks are common off Duxbury Beach, and usually show up around this time of year, too. They are actually larger than Great Whites, and an inexperienced observer or even a good one who got a hurried look at it could make a classification mistake. They eat nothing but plankton.

If you can see the dorsal fin, here's how you tell a Great White Shark from a Basking Shark. The GWS fin is pointier, like a surfboard, and has a sharp tip. The dorsal fin of a Basking Shark is much more rounded, and looks like the end of an ironing board. The dorsal fin of the Basking Shark will also flop around limply as the shark turns in the water. The GWS, on the other hand, is always on that Cialis tip.

The sighting could also be an Ocean Sunfish, which can get up to 10 feet or so. The video with the Boston guy cursing at a sea monster involved a sunfish.

Dolphins and even whales can also be mistaken for a GWS, and are common enough in Duxbury's waters.

Also, keep in mind that the guy who is telling you about Basking Sharks and Sunfish is sitting comfortably onshore in Bourne. The guy who actually saw the fish in question is saying "Great White Shark."

Either way, the Duxbury Harbormaster is advising you to stay out of the waters off of Duxbury this morning. He sent some boats out to investigate the sighting, but he found nothing. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy did not detect this shark on their tagged-shark detection buoys.

As my Doctor told me once.... "It's the law of the sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. After that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top."

We have several reporters embedded in the region, and will update you when we have some more information.

Be careful out there, my friends. This magazine can not afford to lose any readers.


UPDATE.... he's hanging around, he just set off the shark detector buoy at 2:42 PM today.


Sunday, July 17, 2016

Great White Shark Sighting Closes Beaches In Plymouth


Beaches are closed for swimming in Plymouth after a Great White Shark was spotted by a fisherman yesterday.

Manomet Point, which is the sight of the last shark attack in Massachusetts (remember the kayak-eating shark?), scored another shark yesterday. It's like Monomoy West out there!

A lobsterman (Bob Ward) pulling up his pots had a "Hooper drives the boat, Chief" moment when a large porker followed his pot to the surface, perhaps briefly mistaking the moving pot for a seal. He was about a half-mile off of a packed-with-bathers Manomet Point.

He called the local gendarme, and beaches were closed for swimming soon after.

Beaches are also close for swimming today. I'm presently not sure if the beaches themselves are closed.

The Atlantic Shark Conservancy verified the shark's presence, which may or may not mean that the shark spotted was tagged by Dr. Gregory Skomal.

We'll get back to you if the shark eats someone.

Cranberry County Magazine thanks this shark for showing up just after we did our Summer Shark Spectacular article.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Can Killer Whales Chase The Sharks Away From Cape Cod?

Old Thom, the Chatham Whale... photo from Capeshores Charters

In case you haven't heard, Cape Cod has a shark problem. It's not really a "problem," and is in fact a sign of a healthy ecosystem, but a tourist-dependent beach destination with Great White Sharks offshore is a soon-to-be non-destination. All it would take is one fatal shark attack on a human to get the ball rolling.

There's not much we can do about it that doesn't involve a wanton act of mass-production animal cruelty. A mass culling of the Cape Cod seal population would be needed, as seals are what the sharks come for. We could also kill the sharks, which are currently protected under federal law.

Or we could just let nature take her course, as people say. Nature works in many mysterious and wonderful ways, and one of these Ways may be taking place just offshore.

A charter fisherman about ten miles off of Chatham spotted an Orca yesterday. We don't mean Quint's doomed boat when we say "Orca," we mean "Killer Whale." It most likely wandered down from the Bay of Fundy, and is relatively unusual in Cape Cod waters.

Another thing that was unusual for a long time on Cape Cod was the presence of a multitude of Great White Sharks just offshore. However, this soon (and by soon, we mean "a couple of years") considered to be the new normal. Why not Orcas?

Orcas do come to New England. The Coast Guard cutter Campbell came across a pod of killer whales about 150 miles off Nantucket in 2014. Experts blame melting Arctic ice and associated whale-food-related problems.
"Don't tell Old Thom that I'm here, OK?" (photo, by our England correspondent Jodi Turck, of seals off Clacton-on-Sea, England)

I'm no marine biologist, but I read 30 minutes of whale stuff, and I'll tell you what I gained from it.

- The whale in question is almost certainly Old Thom, a whale who tends to stray from his fellow killer whales up in Labrador and Newfoundland. He has been spotted in the Bay of Fundy a few times recently.

- Old Thom is about 30 feet long and weighs 8 tons.

- Old Thom comes from a population of whales who don't hunt seals. His peeps prefer to hunt and eat dolphins and Minke Whales. His fellow whales are Specialists, which means "whales that only eat one kind of food."

- This sort of takes the steam out of "Maybe the killer whales will eat all of the seals and end our associated Great White Shark problem."

- A Dr. Hamilton at the New England Aquarium scoffed at the idea of sharks and whales doing the Batman vs Superman thing off of Monomoy. He laughed and said "Maybe in fantasy land" when the Boston Globe asked him about it.

- Scientists laughed and said "Maybe in fantasy land" fifteen years ago if you asked them about Great White Sharks making a summer home off Cape Cod.

- Cape Cod has adequate dolphin and Minke Whales (named for Meincke, a Norwegian sailor who mistook one for a Blue Whale and has been goofed on ever since over it) population to keep Old Thom very well fed.

- Minke whales are usually what you see if you go on a Cape Cod whale watch.

- I have no idea if any (or how many) Minke Whale beachings were a Minke choosing suffocation over being eaten by an Orca.

- Though not listed as an Orca food item, a Beluga Whale got itself into the Taunton River in Fall River and hung out for a few days in 2014. Killer Whales have been spotted upriver in Japan and even in the Columbia River in the US.

- A whale who specializes in seals may not even recognize a fish as a food item, and the same probably goes for whales who eat other whales.

- From what I have gathered, it would be very unusual for Old Thom to buck evolution and change his diet to seals.

- Still, Old Thom could be useful. The one thing that a Great White Shark fears is a Killer Whale.

- Orcas can and do eat anything they want. There are cases of a pod taking out a juvenile Blue Whale. Adult sperm and blue whales are the only whales that an Orca wouldn't cross. Even a large adult GWS is no match for an Orca.

- This website once jokingly suggested that we solve Cape Cod's shark problem by building robot killer whales to patrol the coast off of popular resort beaches. It looks like we could get to test that theory out.

- Several instances have been recorded where an Orca killed a Great White Shark. I have never read of a GWS beating an Orca, and I'll let you know right now that I am researching a future article (tentatively called "Massachusetts Animal Fights: Who Wins?") on which animals in our region can whip ass on which other animals. "Great White vs Orca" just went to the top of that article.

- An Orca holds several advantages on a Great White Shark in a fight. They are almost twice as long as a GW, and often weigh 4-8 times as much as one. Orcas hunt in packs, and will focus on a big fish like a shark if they wish. They are much stronger. They are also much more intelligent, using an amazing knowledge of shark biology when fighting one.

- In combat, an Orca who gets a hold of a GWS will turn it upside down. This induces a state of paralysis called "tonic immobility" in the shark, who is then torn to pieces by the Orca. A victorious Orca will eat only the liver of the shark, and let the rest of the carcass sink to the bottom.

- A tagged Great White Shark who was in a group of sharks that a pod of Orcas attacked off the San Francisco area was observed to immediately dive to 500 feet and swim non-stop to Hawaii.

- Again, Old Thom isn't from a population that A) eats sharks or B) eats seals, which would put Old Thom into competition with sharks.

- Our sharks here on Cape Cod may or may not know that.

- If Old Thom gets closer to shore and smokes a Porker, it may drive other Great Whites away.


- Old Thom poses almost no threat to humans, with one huge exception. To my knowledge, there have been three attacks on humans by an Orca.

- One involved an Orca bumping a child who was swimming. The child was uninjured.

- Another case involved a whale biting a bag of fish that a diver had tied to his arm, and he dragged the diver around for a minute.

- A surfer at Port Sur, California was bitten and released by an Orca, and this is the only case documented where a wild Orca attacked a human. The surfer required 100 stitches.

- These three incidents are all that they have documented. Killer Whales range all over the world, and only three attacks have been recorded on humans... and only one of them was a "real" attack.

- An Orca in captivity is a different story. Dozens of trainers have been attacked. Even the well-known Shamu bit a woman, giving her 200 stitches.

- I have never heard of nor have I been able to find any documentation of Killer Whales in Cape Cod Bay. Larger whales than the Killers wash upon South Shore beaches all the time.                                

- The chances that a pod of Killer Whales will colonize New England is very small, but not impossible, Killer Whales roll in pods, and it must take a bit of convincing to get them to say "Screw Newfoundland and Minke Whales... let's go to Cape Cod and start eating seals."

- If a pod of Killer Whales took up residence on Cape Cod, however, they would stand a good chance of scaring our sharks away. We would then get an Apex Predator Upgrade, with the added bonus of losing an AP that attacks humans and gaining one that will only attack you if you try to force him to bounce a ball on his nose at Sea World.

- Great White Sharks vs Orca is probably not going to be happening here, but it is something to think about if we start seeing more of Old Thom and his buddies in the waters off of Monomoy.

Something else may be targeting him soon....

Friday, August 7, 2015

Great White Shark Spotted Off Duxbury Beach


Do nothing at all seal-like this weekend, as an apex predator put in an appearance off of Duxbury Beach this morning.

Not only was he spotted, he was pinged. This was one of the sharks that Dr. Gregory Skomal tagged, and he was the first test of Duxbury's detect-a-tagged-shark beach protection plan. It passed, with flying colors, a test where a dead Duxburian may have been a failing grade.

The same pinger (there's probably a better term for that, I don't know, sorry) which told us that the shark was in the area is also telling us that he hasn't left the area yet. Yes, we have a new Duxbury celebrity, he's as large as a Grand Cherokee, and he eats human-shaped meals.

(Editor's notes: 1) A tagged GWS set off the Duxbury alarm on 7/11 and 7/17 of this year... 2) I spoke with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, and they said that the shark was spotted by a fisherman... 3) They didn't mention which tagged shark it was.)

Since he's sporting a pingy-thingy, we know that he is one of Dr. Skomal's sharks. That means that he migrated to Duxbury from Monomoy, almost certainly by hooking around Provincetown. That means that the Outer Cape's nightmare may be diffusing over to Duxbury.

Duxbury is usually spared the Cape traffic, too. Odd...

Again, his favorite food is seal. Do nothing at all seal like. Don't even listen to Seal.

We're sort of far back on the list of places that shark experts study (for now), so we don't really know why the shark is here, if he plans to summer here, if he leaves in the winter, if he's the one who tried that kayak out last summer... to be honest, we don't know all sorts of stuff about this shark. We know that he likes People Food.

Swimming was restricted today, at least on Duxbury's town beach. I doubt that people were lining up to dive in off Gurnet Road, either. A shark can rip you up smooth, and not many people win fights with sharks (note the Mick Fanning reference on Duxbury's town beach bulletin board). Be careful out there.


(Cheryl Manning on the pic, merci....)


Thursday, July 16, 2015

Shark Week: How To Not Get Eaten By A Shark



I don't know about you, but it is the opinion of this column that the worst way to die naturally would be a shark attack. I use "naturally" differently than you might, but you get the idea. You are seized out of nowhere, dragged beneath the sea and torn to pieces by a torpedo with teeth. 

It probably wouldn't happen, but your decapitated head may retain consciousness just long enough as it floats away from the rest of you that you could watch yourself being eaten. It would be the fish paying you back for all of those fish sticks you ate as a kid.

From what I can see of how this magazine makes money (don't ask me how, Jessica does most of the thinking here), I can't afford to have anyone reading this website die. Even with money off the table, I don't want to see anyone get eaten.

So, it's on me to help keep you off the menu. Before I do so, I want to stress just how rare a shark attack is. We've had about 10 or so in Massachusetts since the white man came, three of which were fatal. If you throw in the rest of New England, you get those numbers up to 5 or 6 deaths out of 20 attacks. I think North Carolina has had that many this week, and even their numbers add up to "shark attacks are very rare."

The USA as a whole has had 1976 shark attacks in about the last 115 years or so. That number includes Carolina, Hawaii, Florida and California, who get the majority of our attacks. New England is a minor player in this field, and the field in question is called Anomaly Park.

While I don't have the numbers handy, I'd say that about there were 40-52 times when someone won the Megabucks last year. We had one shark attack in that same year. So, it is 50 times more likely that you'll drop a dollar at the 7-11 and someone will hand you back $1.5 million than it is that a shark will attack you. Adam Lanza killed more New Englanders in 10 minutes than every Yankee shark ever, as did Al Qaeda.

However, any gambler will tell you that there is no sure thing. If the chance- however small- of a shark attack exists, it just makes sense to try to lower your odds. You don't have to be at 0% if some sucker near you is only at 20%, especially if he's a fatty (we'll get to that in a minute) or has an open wound.

It's a lot like the smarter guy said to the dumber guy when they were about to flee from an attacking bear. "I don't have to run faster than the bear, I just have to run faster than You."

We'll mix in tips from experts and officials with some of my own observations and inclinations. I don't have any expert training, other than my research on historical shark attacks for a previous article


Never Swim With Seals, And Do Nothing At All Seal-Like

One thing that our last two shark attacks had in common was that the victims were messing around near seals. Sharks eat seals, as eating seals is the whole reason they're hanging around Cape Cod Bay.

There wasn't that much time between when Americans first began recreating by the sea and when we had our first fatal modern shark attack. One of the reasons we haven't had one since 1936 is that we had a bounty on seals. Fishermen hate seals, who compete for the same fish. Up until 1962, you could kill seals and get cheddar for it.... not too shabby, as long as you aren't a seal. 

There was 40,000 bounties paid in Maine and Massachusetts between 1888 and 1962, when Massachusetts stopped paying bounties. Maine stopped in 1945.  Experts say that 70-130K seals were killed once you factor in data fraud, boat strikes, and so forth. That's a lot of shark food exiting the ecosystem.

The region suffered a huge decline in seal activity,and they only really started turning up in large numbers on Cape Cod around the turn of this century. It, in turn, took the sharks about a decade to figure it out.

Humans are pretty easy pickings for a shark if he wanted to have some People Food for a change. We can barely move at all in the water. Even a crippled, drunken, lazy shark could swim circles around Michael Phelps. Other than the slow-motion punch of an underwater boxer, we have no natural defenses against the shark. We're a free lunch, at least from June through September in these parts.

The fact that we have so few attacks means that sharks aren't interested in us as a food source. Neither of our recent human-attacking sharks was killed in the attack... they just went away on their own. They had no interest in continuing the meal.

So, you can really lower your chances of attack by not swimming or boating near the shark's primary food source. Seals are fun, cute, and can even be friendly. They also do tricks, like the one where they disappear faster than you can if a shark comes into the area. Don't be the guy left standing when sharks and seals play Duck Duck Goose. 

If seals are around, we can not stress strongly enough that you should make like a TV show and be St. Elsewhere.

Never Swim Near Fishing Boats (Or Fishing Men)

Sharks also have a tendency to follow fishing boats. I suppose they are after table scraps or something, who knows? 

Two of the regions's fatal shark attacks involved people swimming to or from a fishing boat. Two others involved sharks swamping smaller boats and devouring the occupant.

Sharks are attracted to several things associated with fishing. Fish, naturally, leads off the list. Injured fish writhing in pain on a fishing hook are also on the list, as an injured fish means an easy meal to a shark. Fishing can be bloody, and blood in the water is like doing a rain dance for a shark. Smarter sharks may know that a fishing boat will throw away smaller fish, who then become almost like delivery food at that point.

Don't Go Over Your Head

Almost all of New England's shark attacks involved the shark hitting someone in deeper (10 feet or more) water. Massachusetts doesn't have a shallow-water shark attack fatality on her books, and most of the non-fatal attacks involved fishing boats or surfcasting.

Sharks like to come up under their prey for the Hit. None of our shark attack victims had any idea there was a shark around until it attacked them. Only one attack I read of had the shark coming at the victim in a manner where witnesses reported seeing a dorsal fin before the strike.

As we just saw with the recent Chatham stranding/rescue of a Great White, they do go close to shore. However, the very rare shark attack becomes very, very rare if you stay in the shallows.

Shark Repellent

If you can get Bat Shark Repellent like Batman has, do so. He's smart, and his repellent probably works.

Scientists began work on shark repellents after WWII, when shipwrecks like that of the USS Indianapolis saw hundreds of people eaten by sharks. They've been working at it ever since, and generally can't come up with anything that is 100% efficient. They've tried electricity, chemicals and even magnetism.

It may or may not amuse you to know that Coppertone was one of the big investors in shark repellent research. Your sun tan lotion may have been doing double duty if someone hit the right chemical signature in the repellent lab. SP-40 may have had a more Sharkish meaning to it had they stuck it out.

They did find one thing that repels almost all sharks all the time... dead sharks. Fishermen and scientists both agree that sharks don't like to be around dead sharks. Glandular secretions from dead sharks are the current focus of shark repellent research.

Of course, that was in a 1994 article I found. I assume that someone from Coppertone pointed out that A) you can't swim around with a dead shark, and B) "Honey, would you rub the lotion with the decaying shark liver oil into my shoulders?" sort of takes the fun out of sun-tan-lotion application.



Swim With People Who Are Fatter Than You

Sharks around New England aren't sick, lost, old or demented. They are exactly where they are supposed to be and where they have always been. However, one attacking a human is generally making a mistake.

The mistake is thinking that the human is a seal/tuna/sea lion/sea turtle or whatever else it eats. It's unavoidable, and the shark- to his credit- usually breaks off the attack once he realizes his mistake.

For a fish with such a ravenous reputation, sharks don't eat that much. They expend a lot of energy attacking, and risk significant injury. They want the most bang for their buck when it comes to Epic Meal Time.

That means smoking a Fatty.

Fat people swim slower, and look more like seals than thinner people. They have more flesh, which makes them less crunchy (sharks don't do crunchy if they can avoid it) to the shark, as well as more filling.

I actually asked Dr. Gregory Skomal about this. He did admit that it made perfect sense, but that no research had been done on the subject.

This is a steroid-powered version of the Don't Ever Swim Alone rule. Sharks will pick off soloists if they can. However, given a choice, they will always Super-size their meals. Remember this, use it to your advantage, and waste little pity on the run-stopper.

Avoid Guido-like Bejewelment

I'm not sure if there is a noun for what I'm trying to say there, hence the odd sub-title. I had no way to tie Only Built 4 Cuban Linx to anything sharky.

Things like necklaces and bracelets shine sort of funny in the water, and will look like fish scales to a shark in the wrong conditions. Fish are right at the top of the shark's menu, and he may come closer to see if you are worth biting. You want to avoid being in this calculation if at all possible.

Experts say only the filthy,polluted waters of Boston Harbor prevent more shark attacks from happening at Revere Beach, which has a lot of guidos running around. Boston Harbor had an attack in colonial days,and a Boston kid was the meal in 1936.

Be Local

Just as "Swim with fat people" is probably my advice and not the official advice offered by experts, this one also springs exclusively from my research.

Here's a list of who was bitten in Massachusetts shark attacks... guy from England here courting a woman, a guy from Swampscott, a Boston kid, a Nahant local, a bunch of tourists chartering a boat, a NYC guy, a pair of Truro rental guys and two Plymouth girls... and it didn't bite the Plymouth girls, just their kayak.

You see the pattern. 

It's not just a Cape Cod thing, where there are masses of tourists. The last fatal attacks were in Mattapoisett, Scituate, and Boston. Sharks seem to go out of their way to avoid locals, even passing on the two Plymouth girls (who were cute, I might add... I don't have records of the charisma of the other victims, but it may or may not be important) after knocking them both into the water.

Maybe we have Spider Sense from living near the water, and we can subconsciously read the signs of imminent danger. Maybe "exotic" people taste better. Maybe tourists lack tans that locals have, and stand out more in the water. Who knows?

What I do know is that sharks seem to favor out-of-towners.

The Other White Meat

I so wanted to find a racial trend I could exploit for laughs here, but I was amazed to find that sharks- at least our sharks here in New England- attack pretty much along the demographic averages regarding skin color. We've had about 20 attacks in our post-colonial history, and maybe 2 were on black people.

The number might be one, I'm not 100% sure of a Connecticut attack. Even with just one Black Attack, you have to crunch the numbers with the knowledge that white people beach out more than blacks do, at least around here. "Like I need a tan," my black roomie used to tell me.

I think the sharks have bitten at least one Jew. He may have been feasted upon by a shark who wished for a kosher meal. He was taken on the Sabbath, I believe.

Anyhow, your race or your God won't save you if Ol' Toothy thinks you look tasty. To my knowledge, he doesn't give a damn about such things. We all look alike to apex predators.

Swim During The Day

Sharks attack with power and speed,but they hunt via stealth. They also don't really sleep, to my knowledge. 

While they hunt all day, they are more active and more successful at night. The shadows work in their favor, and they work against the prey. 

What weak and pitiful defenses you have in the water vanish at night. Even if it swims around you with his fin out of the water, you won't see him coming.  They started Jaws the way they did for a reason.

In Conclusion,,,,

Follow these rules, and you'll have mad bread to break up. 

If not, 17 feet on the wake up....



Sunday, July 12, 2015

Shark Week: Ol' Toothy, The Kayak Eatin' Shark Of Manomet And Duxbury



The South Shore was rocked last summer when a Great White Shark made an appearance off of Duxbury Beach, and then the whole world was rocked when, like a day or two later, he attacked a kayak off of Manomet.

I'm assuming it's a He, for no good reason at all. Boats are girls, sharks are boys. That's how I work.

Shark attacks aren't supposed to happen here in Cranberry County. That is Cape Cod we see on the news with sharks just offshore, The Discovery Channel had no interest in Duxbury, and Manomet is lucky to get on TV during Pilgrim/Thanksgiving shows.

Why the disrespect?

For one, we don't have the Outer Cape's seal population. We have seals, a whole bunch of them, but Chatham is Seal City. We're just a suburb. Sharks go where the seal meat is plentiful, and there is plenty more of it out in Monomoy.

Two, our shark may have been a rogue. I don't mean a Communist or a child molester, just a big fish who should have been off Cape Cod instead of the South Shore. At least, that's what the TV tells us.

Also, I suppose a version of Mayor Vaughn's barracuda speech applies here. If you say "Manomet," it means something to everyone on the South Shore and nothing to anyone else. If you say "Cape Cod," you have the nation's attention.

As you can see, Cape Cod Bay was awash with the blood of the non-believers.... OK, just kidding, that's a cranberry bog.

Are we in the media somewhat responsible for the public being shocked when a porker turned up near the Manomet Lobster Pound?  Mayhap we are, child, mayhap we are....

I say "we," but I mean "they." Dr. Gregory Skomal, the shark expert with all the shark tags you see on TV, can vouch for me. I was pestering him about sharks on the South Shore long before the entertainment went down off Plymouth, even about Duxbury in particular. I was so far ahead of the curve, I got scoliosis from it.

Still, there was a WTF reaction locally when the shark arrived off Plymouth. People couldn't deal. We, the media, the people who gave you the bread-n-milk panics when an inch of snow falls, had left the public hanging. You didn't know something you should have known, and it was something lethal.

Remember, it wasn't that long ago that you had trouble catching striper off of these beaches. We went from 0 to 60 rather quickly when Ol' Toothy had himself a bite of that girl's kayak last summer. Suddenly, we had mad shark respeck! It's also quite a jolt to the ecosystem.

In one week, what may quite possibly have been one single fish changed the game on the Irish Riviera. We had a new apex predator (our previous champ was either the coyote or the horsefly, and the meanest thing in our waters were bluefish), and he was an A Lister. He also had a taste for People Food.

One thing that didn't change was the disrespect. Dr. Skomal never left Chatham, even though we had the shark who was into the Other White Meat. If one fish deserved a tag last summer, it was Ol' Toothy. He never got one.

Even though he tried to eat some of my readers, I like Ol' Toothy. My amity (groan) for this fish is irrational. I like to think that he is the only shark who used Cape Cod Bay. He, for lack of a better term, is a local, a native. One of us.

In 1637, old Plimoth got a bit too crowded for one Myles Standish, so he walked a few Myles through the primeval forest and founded Duxbury. Sure, everyone who was anyone was in Plimoth... which is why Myles went to Duxbury. I like to think that Ol' Toothy was on that sort of trip with Chatham. He went out to the country.

This is why I wanted a tag in Ol' Toothy. I looked in his eyes and saw a Local. Maybe he's a snowbird, maybe he isn't... but what's to stop him from coming back?

I don't know if he came through the Cape Cod Canal or if he looped around Provincetown. What I do know is that sharks don't get enough credit for their brains.

Think about it. They live in water. It all looks the same. Sharks have invented no GPS systems. Yet, the sharks know enough to head south for the winter, and to return to where the seals are in the summer. I know homeless people who aren't that sharp.

Ol' Toothy knows all that, but he knows something else, too. He knows how to get around Provincetown, or through the Canal. Rather than maybe fighting for territory on a crowded beach in Chatham, he has all of the South Shore to himself. The seals haven't diffused here from Chatham in great numbers yet, but there are more than enough to feed a forward-thinking shark devoted to a more leisurely existence than the one to be had in the rat race off Monomoy.

If the seals are in short supply, there is always a kayak to tip over. God shall provide....

Yup, my gut tells me that we haven't seen the last of Ol' Toothy.