Great Whites vs. Seals

The return of great white sharks to the waters off Cape Cod sets up what promises to be a fascinating test case for ecological restoration: What happens when a terrifying apex predator makes a comeback in a tourism hotbed known for lobster shacks, mini golf, and family-friendly beaches? So far it’s been a surprisingly soft collision—Cape residents have mostly welcomed the sharks. But the good vibes could fade quickly in the wake of a fatal attack. Should that happen, East Coast beach-goers will start facing the choice that communities in places like California, Western Australia, and South Africa have dealt with for decades: Do we still go into the water? Because the sharks on the Cape, which arrive in May and remain until December, aren’t going away anytime soon.

It’s been a long road to recovery for great whites on the Atlantic seaboard. In 1975, Steven Spielberg set Peter Benchley’s Jaws in a small Massachusetts resort community, ushering in an era of fear that coincided with the wholesale slaughter of sharks in U.S. waters (Benchley spent much of his life trying to make amends as a born-again conservationist). Three years earlier, though, Congress had passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which outlawed the killing of seals, a common practice at the time among commercial fishermen, who saw them as competition. Gray seals, a primary food source for great whites on the East Coast, have rebounded and can be found from Long Island to Nova Scotia. Sharks can be found along that same stretch, but for now they’ve focused on Monomoy Island, a federally protected spit of land with an estimated 10,000 seals, located just a few miles from the public beach at the quaint Cape Cod tourist town of Chatham.

In 2014, 68 sharks were spotted off Cape Cod. The number of sharks has risen in recent years, lured by a surge in seal populations off the Cape.

Researchers over the years have tagged dozens of sharks, allowing their habits and movements to be tracked and studied and, sometimes, making that information public. With tagging certain sharks have become particularly familiar, getting their own names, online profiles, and social media fanbases.