Plymouth Shark Attack: New Sighting Of Shark Off Cape Cod, Great White Seen Eating Seal

A Great White shark that staged an attack on two kayaks on Wednesday off the coast of Plymouth, Massachusetts, may have been sighted for a second time since that attack — this time enjoying its dinner off the coast of Provincetown on Cape Cod.

A shark was sighted by an off-road vehicle driver on Race Point Road near the easternmost tip of Cape Cod. The driver flagged down a Cape Cod National Seashore ranger and told the ranger that he had just seen a shark attack a seal, then eat half of the ocean mammal.

The ranger then saw the shark dining on the remains of the seal before the possible Great White swam further out to sea where the waters are deeper and it could no longer be seen.

While there was no official confirmation that the shark was a Great White — or the same shark that attacked the two female kayakers on Wednesday — the sighting was the second since the attack. On Thursday, a boater named David Garfield spotted a shark that he identified as a Great White off the coast of Scituate, which would be about 20 miles from Plymouth, the site of the kayak shark attack.

The sighting off the Provincetown shoreline would have taken the shark about 30 miles from where it was last spotted the day before, if indeed the shark is the same big fish. The shark that attacked the kayaks was confirmed by its bite marks to be a Great White.

Garfield said the shark that he spotted Thursday appeared to be between 12 and 15 feet in length, and also appeared to be feeding on a seal.

Boston University marine biologist Rick Murray said he believed that the shark sighted Thursday was the same Great White that carried out the Wednesday attack. While no expert has yet weighed in on the Saturday sighting of a feeding shark off of Cape Cod, the chances that all three shark sightings are of the same shark seem likely.

Cape Cod Seashore officials immediately put up signs Saturday warning that a shark was sighted in the area.

The two women whose kayaks were the target of the Wednesday shark attack said that the whole purpose of their kayak trip was in hopes of sighting a Great White shark. But they had no idea how close they would come to becoming lunch for the Great White which they were able to see — up close.