WELLFLEET, MASS. (WHDH) - Several state legislators joined renowned shark expert Greg Skomal Monday as he studied and tagged sharks just off the coast of Chatham.
They spotted so many great white sharks during their time on the water, they almost lost count.
“My takeaway from today was the vast number of sharks we saw, from one to another to another,” said state Rep. Sarah Peake, a Democrat from Provincetown.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh, there’s some sharks out there,’ but to be out there today, and see the amount of sharks that are out there, it definitely put it in perspective,” said Republican state Rep. David Viera of Falmouth.
The trip to see Dr. Smokal’s research up close was planned well before a great white shark killed 26-year-old Arthur Medici Saturday near Wellfleet.
On Monday, Medici’s aunt said they recently talked about how much he loved going to the beach and how she was fearful of sharks there.
Local and state leaders are looking at ways to prevent shark attacks, but Skomal says that’s a difficult task.
“There’s no silver bullet,: he said. “There are drones out there. Nets are used in other parts of the world. I’m not sure how feasible (it is). It’s dynamic.”
Some tips, other than staying far away from seals and not going in too far out, include not swimming at dawn or dusk, limiting splashing, and not wearing shiny jewelry.
But the harsh reality along the Cape Cod National Seashore is that there are just a lot of animals in the water.
“The seal numbers have come back, the shark numbers have come back. It’s a wild environment, and that’s part of it,” Skomal said. “We can’t change the behavior of seals, or behaviors of sharks. We have to modify our own behavior. That’s how coexistence will happen.”
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