Boaters Film Great White Shark Off Provincetown
A boater in Massachusetts managed to film a great white shark off Provincetown earlier this week, as the species settles in off the coast for the summer months.
Tom Zoller and his wife, of Lancaster, filmed the white shark on Wednesday, after the predator approached their boat. According to the Worcester Telegram, the couple were located roughly three quarters of a mile from Race Point Beach when they encountered the shark. Speaking with the Cape Cod Times, Zoller said he was unafraid of the shark, and used a GoPro to record the predator as it swam by.
John Chisholm, a biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and a shark researcher, confirmed that the animal in the footage was indeed a great white, citing its two-tone coloration. The predators are no strangers to the region, and in recent years have become something of a welcome presence off the Cape, as they are drawn to the area by a large seal population. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy is currently engaged in the second summer of a population study focused on white sharks in the region, as the Inquisitr has previously reported.
Appearance by white shark puts an end to man’s Golden-Gate-to-Farallones swim: http://t.co/fd785xWgYE @SFGate pic.twitter.com/szj19cAQaz
— Monterey Aquarium (@MontereyAq) July 30, 2015
Earlier this month, researchers discovered a whale that was tangled in a rope off Provincetown, effectively “hogtied.” The Marine Animal Entanglement Response team at the Center for Coastal Studies was able to free the animal, as WCVB notes, but not before it sustained injuries from a white shark that was circling it when they arrived.
#DidYouKnow: The great white has the largest teeth of any extant shark species! Learn more >> http://t.co/hTBcpS0gjf pic.twitter.com/zLQP4n9X0j — Discovery (@Discovery) July 29, 2015
The shark was identified as one known to researchers, having been tagged in 2014, though they asserted it was the first sighting of the animal during the 2015 season. The center noted that it is extremely uncommon to see white sharks preying upon live whales off the coast of New England, pointing out that the predators often prefer to feed on them when they are dead or incapacitated. They cited the whale’s predicament as the driving reason why the white shark would approach it.
Earlier this summer, a white shark made international headlines when it became stranded on a beach in Chatham. Rescuers credited beachgoers with saving the shark by keeping its gills wet until the animal could be towed back into the water. Several days later, researchers detected the great white, named Jameson, confirming that the shark did indeed survive.
[Image: Tom Zoller via the Cape Cod Times]
