The Sunday Read: 'Fear on Cape Cod as Sharks Hunt Again'

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2021

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over the past decade, the waters around Cape Cod have become host to one of the densest seasonal concentrations of adult white sharks in the world. Acoustic tagging data suggest the animals trickle into the region during lengthening days in May, increase in abundance throughout summer, peak in October and mostly depart by Thanksgiving. To conservationists, the annual returns are a success story, but the phenomenon carries unusual public-safety implications. Unlike many places where adult white sharks congregate, which tend to be remote islands, the sharks’ summer residency in New England overlaps with tourist season at one of the Northeast’s most-coveted recreational areas. What will it take to keep people safe?

Transcript

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0:00.0	I've first moved to New England in the 90s and over the years my family and I have lived
0:16.0	on the water.
0:18.6	My children are surfers, surf instructors, lifeguards, commercial fishermen and co-hoggers.
0:26.2	In the 1990s we didn't have many seals.
0:29.4	I think I could count on one hand the number of times that I saw one.
0:34.4	That's changed.
0:36.1	Thousands of the animals now live along the beaches of Cape Cod and if you go to any of
0:41.6	the outer beaches on most days you'll see dozens of grey seals in a few hours.
0:47.0	You might see hundreds.
0:49.2	They've become nearly ubiquitous there.
0:52.5	My name is CJ Chivers and I'm a staff writer for the New York Times magazine.
0:57.6	I spend most of the summer working on Cape Cod.
1:01.1	One of the busier beaches on the outer Cape is called NOSIT.
1:04.4	It's in the town of Orleans.
1:07.4	NOSIT is a beach like you might imagine many others.
1:10.0	It has a paid-aparclot and concession stands.
1:13.3	There are paths over the dunes that lead to lifeguard chairs where people set up their umbrellas
1:18.8	and their coolers and their towels and they spend the day.
1:24.0	This summer NOSIT beach was repeatedly closed to swimming.
1:27.9	People could come and read a book or have a lemonade, play for his bee, do any of the things
1:33.0	you do in the sand.
1:34.3	But going in the water was restricted.
	...

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