Shark researchers have spent the past 15 years studying large white sharks that prey on seals along the beaches of the Outer Cape. But this summer they’ll be spending some more time learning about juveniles that frequent Cape Cod Bay.
"As far as the Cape goes, it's really the next frontier for white shark research," Megan Winton, senior scientist at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy said of the Bay.
In recent years, fishermen have been reporting an increasing number of small white sharks in Cape Cod Bay, under about nine feet long. Researchers tagged a small sample of 17 juvenile sharks in the Bay last summer and plan to expand their work there this season.
"What's really neat is they appear to be segregating from the larger white sharks," said Greg Skomal, state shark biologist for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. "Now larger white sharks will eat smaller ones. All right, that that can happen. And so you really don't want to be in an area where there's large white sharks if you're a small white shark. But what about Cape Cod Bay? What does Cape Cod Bay provide to these smaller white sharks? And is it critical habitat? Is it essential habitat? You know, should we designate it as such? And in order to do that, we really need to better understand their behavior in the Bay."
To answer those questions, scientists plan to tag young sharks to see where they go and what they do.
"We want to get a better understanding of this age/size group. And so we're going to spend a little bit more time in the Bay – get some tags out to look at, not only their residency in the Bay, their behavior in the Bay, and where they go after they leave the Bay," said Skomal.
Winton noted, among other technologies, they'll be using camera tags "to get a shark's eye view of exactly what they're doing in the Bay."
