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....)
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