River Sharks In Massachusetts?

Sharks are an accepted hazard of Massachusetts coastal life. Living or vacationing at the beach is awesome, but you could get stuck in 10 miles of bumper-to-bumper tourist traffic, you could get flooded by a hurricane and you could get eaten by a shark.

There are degrees of probability attached to each event- a Cape Codder is more likely to sit on Route 25 for an hour than to get the Jonah/whale treatment from a local leviathan- but the risk is there, and you have to balance risks and benefits before making a decision to go to such a place. It's why people tend to not vacation in Chernobyl.

People who live away from Cape Cod can scoff at some of those coastal risks. You have almost no chance of an ocean wave breaking on your house if you live in Bridgewater, other than Ye-Have-Offended-A-Wrathful-God types of events. Beach erosion doesn't come up much in Mansfield town meetings. Cape traffic doesn't really touch Halifax... although I'd bet it does if you overanalyze a bit.

One thing you should pretty much be able to count on is that you should stand very little chance of being attacked by a shark in, say, Rockland... at least once you eliminate fantasy stuff like the Chevy Chase-style land sharks or a Sharknado moving inland.

Jones River, Kingston MA

Sharks, for the most part, require salt water to live. They are designed for salty living, they have difficulty balancing without salt and will die very quickly if they are removed from salt water.

Not everyone knows that- the first time that I beat on a hotel door with my fist involved someone from Nebraska who didnt know that coastal people don't use salt water in their pipes and therefore fish caught in Cape Cod Bay can't be kept alive by filling the bathtub with tap water- but it is taken for granted by a percentage of the general population that is steady in the upper 90s.

People who study sharks, both professionally and as a hobby, know that there are several types of river sharks (mostly in Australia and India), and that Bull Sharks can go up rivers with ease. Bull Sharks are perfectly comfortable in fresh water, and that's sort of where we're headed today.

Mattapoisett River, Mattapoisett MA

Massachusetts has had three fatal shark attacks (off Boston, Scituate and Mattapoisett) since the White Bread showed up in 1620. Native Americans no doubt had attacks as well, but those attacks went down in a manner that Google never recorded. None of the Massachusetts attacks went down in a river, and two of them were quite some distance from shore.

Other than a Great White Shark getting stuck in coastal lagoon a few years ago, inland sharks are almost unheard of in Massachusetts. It does happen, though.

What is believed to be a Basking Shark was spotted miles up the Taunton River in Dighton, a noticeably non-coastal town.  A rumor exists of a Bull Shark going after a fisherman's catch in the Connecticut River, up by Holyoke.  I also saw the Housatonic River mentioned in the same discussion. A shark, probably a Great White, was spotted in the mouth of the Merrimack River once. Mouth-of-river vs. up-the-river is a distinction that we'll get to in a moment.

Bluefish River, Duxbury MA

The sharking in Dighton was painted as a Basking Shark by Dr. Gregory Skomal, and his word is better than mine. Basking Sharks are harmless to humans, unless they fall on them. The Great White Shark at the river mouth is perfectly natural and absolutely dangerous. The Bull Shark in Holyoke is the scariest story of the three.

Each of the fatal shark attacks in Massachusetts history almost certainly involved Great White Sharks, but we also have Bull Sharks. Bull Sharks are no joke. Bull Sharks can get up to a dozen feet long, weigh up to 700 pounds and have a reputation as an ornery, aggressive shark- an ex wife with gills. They are highly territorial, and Wikipedia describes them as having "virtually no tolerance for provocation." I don't know how to explain the math, but they have the highest bite force of any shark. Bull Sharks are very bad things to be swimming near.

Bull Sharks have been spotted in the Mississippi River as far north as Illinois, and up the Ohio River as far as, well, Ohio. They have been spotted in Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana, which is brackish. They have been in the same Potomac River that George Washington once threw a dollar over. Iran has a dozen fatal river shark attacks.

Massachusetts is the far northern range of the Bull Shark. They bear their young in fresh water, where other sharks can't enter. They prefer warm, shallow, murky water. Massachusetts has that, at least in the summer.

If your town has a river that holds 3-5 feet of water and connects to the ocean, you could easily have a Bull Shark. If you go in the water and a hungry ol' Bull Shark is in the water... Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies...

South River, Scituate MA

This is a scary scenario, and perhaps now is the time to introduce Numbers into the discussion. No one has ever been bitten by a Bull Shark in a Massachusetts river in recorded history. My tireless (OK, 2 page) Google searching yielded one or two non-verified river sightings of a Bull Shark in Massachusetts.

A shark attack itself is rare in Massachusetts. If you exclude fishermen, you have 3 fatal attacks and a half dozen or so non-lethal interactions over 400 years. Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York have one shark fatality each, with NY's attack being old enough that it happened to a Dutch guy (who perished when "the Devil appeared in the form of a fish" as he swam across the East River), perhaps a victim of a Bull Shark.

Keep in mind that 20-50 people win the Megabucks lottery annually, and the exponential stuff year to year sort of dwarves shark attacks very quickly. You are thousands of times more likely to win the Lottery, get hit by lightning, bed a Spice Girl, hit a hole-in-one or have a fight with Mike Tyson. More people have been removed from Donald Trump's inner circle since May than have been killed by sharks in Massachusetts in 400 years.

As bad as the odds are on being attacked by  a shark in Massachusetts, the odds against a river shark attack are even worse. None have ever happened here, putting it in the same statistical company as Yeti who have hosted the Late Show, tidal waves in Nebraska, asteroid impacts during the State Of The Union address and frogs who prefer Asian prostitutes.

What I believe is Maraspin Creek, Barnstable MA

That said, there is nothing to stop a Bull Shark from swimming into a Massachusetts river and picking off a bather. It would be a perfectly natural thing.

The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 which inspired the movie Jaws were perhaps partially the work of a Bull Shark, who struck two of the victims in a tidal river well inland. Five Americans were killed by Bull Sharks since 2001.

As far as "deep up a river" goes, the Bull Shark is the sole threat. There are some other concerns, however.

I'm going to leave the "if a Basking Shark can get 20 miles up the Taunton River, could a Great White Shark do so as well?" questions to Dr. Skomal, who is more schooled in these matters than I am. I think that salt-water sharks can enter estuaries during very high tides where the esturay gets extra salinity, but I also started in writing as a sports-betting columnist. I'll leave the answer as between "No" and "a GWS would actually be more likely to chase fish up a river than a plankton-eating Basking Shark."

Cut River, Green Harbor

The Jones River in Kingston, along with Duxbury Bay and Plymouth Bay, are nursing grounds for young Sand Tiger Sharks. Sand Tiger Sharks can reach 10 feet long, and have a mouthful of teeth that you don't want closing on you. 

I'm pretty sure that, once they start getting mature-sized, they swim off to other feeding grounds. They are considered to be docile, and have never bitten a non-fisherman in Massachusetts waters. 

They are noted bait-stealers, and have bitten scored several bites on fishermen and bathers in other states.

Still, they love river mouths, and there was and perhaps still is a STS research facility on the Jones River which catches and releases sharks in the Jones River area.

If you dangle your legs off the boat and a STS bites your foot, it will probably be of little comfort to you that this sort of attack is beyond rare in Massachusetts waters. Please note that this is a far-flung scenario which has yet to occur in the Bay State.

Acushnet River, Fairhaven and New Bedford MA

Massachusetts has several rivers that touch the ocean, and even if a shark can't swim up the river, they love to hang out at the mouth of the river and pick off fish entering the ocean. This could be problematic for people swimming or kayaking in river mouths.

Again, no river deaths of humans have been attributed to sharks in Massachusetts, and I can't even find records of an attack going down in a Massachusetts river.

You stand almost no chance of encountering a shark in a Massachusetts river... but don't say that we didn't warn you if it does happen.

Humarock July 3rd Shutdown Has Ominous Implications

Humarock will be closed to revelers on July 3rd. Citing "historical" cycles of drinking and teen rabble-rousing, the Scituate selectmen voted to nix the holiday revelry.

Nothing says "Happy Birthday America" like radically curtailing personal freedoms, right?

Humarock's beach, along with other coastal villages like Green Harbor and Duxbury Beach, have for decades been host to massive Independence Day celebrations on July 3rd (the 4th, in these parts, are reserved for fireworks shows in other towns like Plymouth). These celebrations feature family parties, heroic drinking, Gettysburg-style gunpowder expenditure, roving gangs of teenagers, Dresden-like bonfires and twelve hour adult drunks. It tends to get a bit rowdy, even for the Irish Riviera.

Police naturally tire of the annual Night Of Action on these beaches, and the simple solution is to shut the party down. Seems like a good idea, no?

Most bad ideas usually do at the time they are thought up. Very few people who aren't in Congress, think "That sounds like it will backfire catastrophically, let's try it out."

The upside of the beach closure is instantly apparent. A giant, wild party will be shut down.

Let's examine the downside, shall we?

Humarock is setting a precedent that will be adopted all along the coast. A century worth of tradition can be erased by a mere wet blanket of a selectmen group... especially if they own property in the former party zone. Something that many people take for granted can be snatched away with a private vote of five people or so.

The gentrification of the Irish Riviera is never more apparent than it will be tonight in the Riviera's capital of Humarock. It's not like today's people party harder than yesteryear's. I'd take some 1968 LSD gang of student radicals over today's millennial kids in a Gettin' Rowdy contest, and I'd also wager on my own kegs-and-kegs-of-beer 1980s compatriots.

It's the people who have changed, as well as the demographics and the style of governing. Many of the cottages we remember from 1950-1990 are now 3 story beach mansions that only a wealthy person could afford. The elite, even in a town like Duxbury where the ceiling is high but the floor isn't that low, tend to not reflect the will of the people. However, they do have disproportionate influence in government. The mick with the shanty cottage won't be hosting the next campaign fundraiser, if you catch my drift.

Lacking that connection with the people and certainly not about to go forth and mingle with the rabble, the pols and elite lose touch with some of the things that make living in town special.

The beach closure won't aid public safety that much. If they were serious about this being a public safety issue, maybe they would order the bars to stop serving alcohol on a night when many people will be walking down dark roads with no sidewalks or streetlights. I'd wager that Scituate's many taverns and bars have a higher body count than her July 3rd revelry.

Somehow, I don't see the need for public safety being THAT important to the people who make laws these days. Business is business, after all.

I don't think that it will lower arrests, or even curtail the teen presence. Many teens don't peruse the news every day, and will be unaware of the ban. Many will be lying to their parents about where they are headed, and will simply get dropped off down the road some before wandering into the party area.

Police will stop the first wave, but it takes time to chase off (and especially arrest) a gang of kids. It takes less time for another gaggle to pop up just around the corner. Police resources are finite, and the law could soon be overwhelmed.

This is especially true in that kids who aren't allowed in Humarock are going to turn up somewhere else, leaving police with a choice of "Let two cops try to control Humarock while we respond to kids turning up in large numbers in other parts of town" or the far more ominous "In order to protect Humarock, we're going to abandon policing of other beaches in town. Make your own law on Scituate Neck, folks!"

Kids who are turned away will be free to choose a new spot, in parts of town that will hardly be policed at all. Kids who wander into Humarock will get nonsense trespassing arrests, at the expense of chaos in other parts of town.

If the town does manage to cover all of the real estate, it  seems logical to assume that the same amount of kids will be arrested, just in different parts of town. We're left with a ceiling of "we arrest people in other parts of town now" and a floor of "white riot.' Neither of these seem like a benefit worth gutting a cherished holiday celebration over.

This closure could even hurt property values and rental rates. July 4th is the peak week for renting cottages, and the block party is the engine that drives it. "The town square has a barbershop quartet tonight" doesn't pull the same weight as "Relive your childhood for $3000 a week."

Again, if you are an elite not dependent on rental income to maintain your property, this tradition matters little to you. The ban may actually squeeze some of the rabble out of the neighborhood, in favor of the more acceptable rich man who will snatch up his property.

As we said before, you can't fault the police for wanting to control a ZooMass-style block party, but this beach closure sounds a lot like the downside always expressed in giant asteroid impact movies when someone mentions exploding the asteroid with a nuclear weapon... rather than a million ton asteroid hitting the planet all at once, we instead get the same weight hitting the planet in a buckshot-like manner. You get just as much damage, at least in a F=MA sense.

Humarock seems to be headed in this direction. After them, Marshfield, Duxbury, Plymouth, Cape Cod... it can only happen if you let it happen, people.

Beach Wi-Fi And Charging Stations

We stumbled across these in Westport, at Horseneck Beach.

You can lock on to their WiFi signal while you're at the beach. This is important, because you can waste a lot of data on a beach day. Also, it allows you to buy a cheap phone for beach use. No need for any phone cards, nor any need to have an overachieving wave hit your fancy new I-phone or whatever the kids are using these days.

You can also charge up your phone. I should have memorized this process better, but you use your credit card, lock your phone in the little charging station, and come back for it after X amount of recharge time.

Rather than wasting a power line that will almost certainly get destroyed by a nor'easter, they power it by what looks like a removable solar panel. They were confident enough in her sturdiness to have it out in late-April/early-May. While the solar-based charger power may be weak on cloudy/rainy days, I'd imagine that demand for beach WiFi would also be low on those days.

I don't do my beaching in Westport (although I will in the future, Horseneck Beach is charming), so I haven't field-tested this Bad Larry. I have no idea if the signal reaches very far, Energetic beaches could actually trot them out to where the people are and remove them when the seas are threatening. Horseneck Beach has them up by the snack bar.

It seems like a good idea to me. Charlie Baker has his name on it, so maybe it is exclusive to State beach reservations or some such stuff. Larger beaches may want more than one, to spread them out some and avoid massing the phone phreaks in one spot. 

I have no idea what one of these costs (Editor's Note: $96,500 bought a dozen of them), but it might be a nice investment for a town with a beach. 

Places that have these presently:

Artesani Playground and Wading Pool - Boston
Constitution Beach - Boston
Southwest Corridor Park - Boston
Castle Island - South Boston
Murphy Rink - South Boston
Nickerson State Park - Brewster
Lynch Family Skate Park - Cambridge
Nantasket Beach Reservation - Hull
Nahant Beach Reservation - Nahant
Wollaston Beach - Quincy
Salisbury Beach Reservation - Salisbury

Horseneck Beach Reservation - Westport

Harboring: Duxbury

We've been visiting various harbors lately, and yesterday was Duxbury's turn.

It was a stormy and choppy day, not ideal for boating or photography... especially if you're shooting with a phone, and just one little drop on the lens can greatly degrade the hack-photography that was already going on.

I've actually owned a house with greater ocean-safety concerns than this house... in Duxbury, too. While this house is indeed floating, it doesn't have waves breaking on it or water rushing into it. I've had that over in the Gurnet Road area, in most every bad nor'easter since 1970 or so. I have since moved to a house on a hill.

It's a bit early in the boating season, so we have more homes and less boats in this article. The true players wait for a bit later in the warm season to get their boats in the water. I go through Duxbury a lot, so you can count on some good look-at-the-rich-guy-boat articles once summer is summering.

You only catch the most gangsta of lobsters if you set the traps on the dock and wait for your quarry to crawl up for a snack. On the plus side, you don't waste much gas and there is little wear-n-tear on the boat.

Duxbury representin' hard with the green dragon. You can't take this boat out on Loch Ness, as Nessie may think you're snatching up one of her kids. She reacts poorly in those scenarios.

The Harbormaster should have a bigger boat, as Chief Brody used to say.

It would be a more patriotic shot if one of those white boats had been painted red,

The 2017 Oscar for Most Nautical Doorway goes to...

Windy, raw days suck for you and I... but they are a boon for sailors, who need wind and who are most likely going to end up wet anyhow.

Obligatory rich person house shot...

I wasn't kidding about the boats not being in yet this early in the season,

Box o' Buoys... 

This is technically a cove, but it works in the Harboring article series.

Those dock ladders look odd without the integral-to-the-process boat to lower yourself into.

Every time that I drive by the Bluefish River Bridge as an adult, I'm amazed that I didn't paralyze myself as a kid diving off of it.

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up."