June 28, 2008
CHATHAM — Fourteen passengers on a seal watch boat saw a shark attack and kill a seal yesterday during a cruise to Monomoy Island.
The island, which is a national wildlife refuge, is home to hundreds of seals and also a favored feeding ground of several species of sharks.
Capt. Bob Littlefield is sure the shark he saw rip a seal in half yesterday afternoon was a great white.
"It was a quite a bloody mess," said Littlefield, who has been a captain on Cape Cod for 32 years.
Littlefield was steering a 42-foot, high-speed catamaran owned by Monomoy Island Excursions of Harwich Port on the ocean side of Monomoy, where hundreds of seals were sunning and swimming, when suddenly there was a commotion in the water.
Littlefield, who said he had always wanted to see a shark eat a seal, turned the boat toward the area, which quickly became red with blood. As the boat got closer, the shark went under, taking half of the gray seal with it. The tour captain estimated the seal to be 300 to 400 pounds, and the shark to be between 14 and 16 feet.
Was he scared?
"I don't think I want to be a surfer going out there with a wetsuit," Littlefield said. "But no, I thought it was quite exciting. The passengers did, too."
New England Aquarium research scientist John Mandelman said it may have been a great white. But it also could have been a mako or thresher, he said. The latter species are also large fish, but not as large as the great white.
A typical adult great white shark measures 13 to 16 feet with a typical weight of 1,500 to 2,450 pounds,
The mako and thresher are more common in New England. he said.
"This is totally normal, and nothing people should be scared about," Mandelman said.
The last documented human death in a Massachusetts shark attack was in 1936, according to Tony LaCasse, spokesman for the New England Aquarium.
LaCasse said there have been more reports of sharks attacking seals near Monomoy Island in recent years, but that doesn't necessarily mean more sharks.
"What we do know is that there are many more seal observation boats than ever before," he said.
Topic: Sharks - Surprise, Surprise (Read 2351 times)