Summer of ’26 update: things just got a little safer around here for the great white shark.
The large hooks and long wire leaders that can be used to snag these apex predators off the shoreline – either accidentally or intentionally – had already been banned on Cape Cod Bay and the Outer Cape. Now those rules apply to Nantucket.
Such regulatory enhancements on behalf of these creatures have come a long way from not so long ago when it was open season, a time when great whites were treated much like gladiators in the Coliseum, rounded up and killed for sport.
A good chunk of the blame falls on everyone’s favorite blockbuster, Jaws. Four years ago -- 47 years after the movie’s debut -- director Stephen Spielberg came clean on his culpability. He told BBC Radio, ``I truly, and to this day, regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film.’’
Jaws was a first-class horror flick, for sure, and it launched a legendary Hollywood career. But the attendant hysteria brought ruin, bloody ruin, on the poor great white.
It was something I experienced firsthand.
Before retiring, I had been at Bloomberg News, most of those 19 years as Boston bureau chief, and I knew as well as any reporter that shark stories got me clicks, and clicks got me noticed by readers. Even better, by my managers. So here and now I offer my own mea culpa to the aggrieved fin-sters as I admit that I wrote with great enthusiasm about the now-defunct Oak Bluffs Monster Shark Tournament.
In 2014, the tourney ended after the death of its organizer and also because things were getting ugly. The fishermen brought in the sharks they had hooked to compete against others. And, as I wrote back then, ``With those fearsome trophies hanging on the pier, rows of razor teeth shining in the sun, came boatloads of drunken revelers, bar brawls, and even bodies passed out on the sidewalks from the potent mix of alcohol and shark mania.’’
Gail Barmakian, one of five Oak Bluffs selectmen at the time, told me, “It was a real frat-boy scene, a total circus.’’
The bloody smackdown is but memory now.
In those intervening years, much has been done here in the Commonwealth to protect the great whites also known simply as white sharks.
It is now illegal to intentionally attract, hook, or catch these creatures from the shoreline or on a boat.
And there are those expanded restrictions on the heavy gear used at the shoreline. Drones, remote-controlled boats, or bait cannons that drop bait past the surf line are also taboo in order toprevent luring sharks near swimmers.
It is also illegal to possess, sell, or trade shark fins which some Asian cuisines consider a delicacy.
Slowly but surely, the great white is losing its monstrous reputation. They’re still dangerous, still magnificent, but most of us know by now that common sense and sensible precautions can keep us safe.
If Spielberg wants to tackle a real monster, an unforgivable aggressor making life on the Vineyard difficult, may I suggest the obvious: the lone star tick whose bite can cause lethal meat allergies for its victim.
Alpha-gal syndrome – coming soon to a theater near you.
(Dan, maybe bring up the Jaws theme for a few seconds at the end? Dun-dun, dun-dun.)
