Interview with shark expert Tom King

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When Captain John “J.C.” Burke phoned in a secondhand report of a great white shark swimming in an estuary on Naushon Island on September 21, 2004, Dr. Greg Skomal rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay. Sure,” Skomal recalls saying dismissively to his friend. “Send me a photo.” Skomal, a senior biologist for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and the state’s top shark expert, was understandably worn down from 17 years of supposed sightings of the creature. Save for a video of white sharks swimming near the bow of a boat off of Provincetown, he had only seen sporadic evidence to support the largely grandiose claims. Similarly, Burke was skeptical of the tip he had received from a friend who, he says, “sees a lot of things.” Burke and Skomal agreed to head over to the pond on Naushon, one of the Elizabeth Islands, making sure to bring rods and bait; when the great white didn’t show, at least they could do some fishing.

Once they entered the pond, another boat confirmed the sighting. Burke and Skomal glanced around and saw a dorsal fin poking out of the water in the distance—“just like something you’d see in a movie,” Burke says. When they approached the fin and cut the engine, an enormous fish swam up alongside their boat. Burke said, “What do you think, Doc?”

Staring in awe, Skomal mouthed an expletive. “It wasn’t a report. It wasn’t a rumor, you know?” Skomal says today. “It wasn’t a mystery fish . . . it was a 14-foot, almost 2,000-pound great white shark swimming in a salt pond, in an estuary, where people swim all the time.” The estuary was an ideal place for an up-close glimpse of the free-swimming female great white, which stayed until scientists coaxed her into open waters on October 4 of that year. Now, Skomal thought, every great white sighting was worth investigating.

In summer 2008, Skomal’s office confirmed five of 19 reports of white shark sightings in Massachusetts waters. But in spite of swelling numbers of sightings since 2004, the infamous carcharodon carcharias accounts for an infinitesimal fraction of the shark population around Cape Cod and the Islands. And while the species has been implicated in more attacks on humans than any other shark worldwide, the only fatal white shark attack in Massachusetts occurred more than 70 years ago. For every great white sighting Skomal confirms, far more remain unconfirmed or disproved. “Any person walking on a beach in Massachusetts has a probability of seeing a white shark,” says Skomal. “There’s also a probability that they’ll get struck by lightning—it happens to be higher.”

The Value of Charisma

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At least a dozen species of sharks—including great whites—visit the waters off of Massachusetts each year. These sharks are migratory creatures; the population starts to spike in June, when the temperature warms and the waters turn into a rich foraging area for sharks to feed on marine life. By mid-October, chilly weather greatly reduces the number. Spiny dogfish and smooth dogfish—which rarely exceed four or five feet in length—make up the bulk of the Cape’s shark population. Blue sharks are by far the most abundant of bigger oceanic species of sharks, both near the Cape and worldwide, with makos and threshers trailing at a distant second and third, respectively.

Despite their rarity in the ocean, great whites receive quite a bit of attention. Physically, the sharks possess an unrivaled, iconic appearance. Mature whites measure between 12 and 21 feet, with a 14-footer weighing about 1,700 pounds. Its intimidating countenance is distinguished by an abrupt separation between the creature’s white underside and deep-grey dorsal area, its cone-shaped nose, pitch-black eyes, and serrated teeth. Skomal lists a few more reasons behind the attention paid to great whites: other shark species are often deep-water dwellers—blue sharks, for example, generally stay at least 10 miles out to sea—and the beach-bound aren’t as likely to encounter them; they’re not exposed to more than 29 million viewers during the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week programming; they don’t bite people. “They’re not charismatic,” Skomal says.

From Cool Critters to Incredible Animals

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Even though sharks have inhabited the ocean for more than 400 million years, they still remain mysterious. Basic questions of habitat, diet, life cycle, and reproduction remain unanswered for many of the more than 500 known shark species. Skomal’s fascination with sharks started during childhood vacations in the Caribbean and remained strong through his schooling at the University of Rhode Island and later at Boston University, and into his professional life. “They go from being really cool critters when you were a kid to being really incredible animals that you want to study,” he says. He arrived at his post on Martha’s Vineyard in 1987 and has remained with the Division of Marine Fisheries ever since. John Chisholm joined him as an assistant in 2005. Among other things, Skomal and Chisholm conduct studies on native shark species, formulate management policy, and educate the broader public about sharks. Skomal’s work has brought him as far away as Australia, and he has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America and several Discovery Channel programs. In 2008, he authored The Shark Handbook, a reference volume that offers a comprehensive view of the creatures.

Massachusetts is one of only a handful of states—and the only one north of Virginia—with an active, state-funded shark research program existing outside of academia. Since 1987, Skomal and his associates have visited shark fishing tournaments in Massachusetts and elsewhere to interview fishermen and examine their catches. They have collected data on more than 20,000 larger-species sharks; about 96% of that number have been blues, 3% have been makos, and 1% includes rarer breeds like threshers, porbeagles, hammerheads, and tigers. In 22 years of collecting data, not a single great white has been captured.

“When I saw the dorsal, I knew  it was different.”

Nonetheless, other varieties of sharks rarely become headline fodder in Massachusetts. “In most people’s minds, a ‘shark’ equals ‘white shark,’” Skomal says. The 2004 great white sighting and the subsequent media attention helped dramatically boost the number of shark sightings reported to the Division of Marine Fisheries. Their records list 42 alleged white shark sightings since 2004. Species spotted in coastal waters make up the majority of the reports from fishermen, boaters, and beachgoers. The criteria necessary to confirm a sighting varies from case to case, but photos or video and credible observers help. “Taking eyewitness accounts of sharks is kind of like a policeman interviewing witnesses of a crime,” Skomal says.

And while white shark reports only account for a smattering of the calls Skomal receives each summer, a single publicized white shark sighting usually spawns several more reports. In July 2008, a lifeguard’s sighting of a dorsal fin 150 to 200 yards off of the Vineyard’s South Beach spurred a second report of a great white sighting on the northern side of the island. Soon after, a spotter plane reported another white shark off of South Beach. Two of these three sightings remain unconfirmed; the third was debunked.

Often, reports mistake great whites for other species like basking sharks. “There’s good reason for (the confusion) because they do look alike,” says Capt. Tom King, 73. King leads fishing charters out of Mill Wharf Harbor in Scituate each summer, pens stories for several publications including On the Water magazine, and runs the Web site newenglandsharks.com">www.newenglandsharks.com">newenglandsharks.com, which receives about 1,000 visitors each day. “The only reason that there aren’t more sightings,” he says, “is that there’s just not a great number anywhere on the East Coast.” King’s site offers hints to help folks identify free-swimming sharks. The task, however, is even more difficult for a novice than it sounds: body shape, fin characteristics, and color must be analyzed in seconds in murky waters. Often, only one or two telltale signs distinguish a species.

But there was no mistaking the white shark King encountered in 1990 while fishing in Massachusetts Bay on the east side of Stellwagen Bank. He initially assumed an animal approaching his boat was a basking shark. “But when I saw the dorsal,” he says, “I knew it was different.” The unmistakable fin with a ragged rear edge sliced through the water as the roughly 14-foot behemoth approached at walking speed. “It just swam down the side of the boat within a few feet of me, and you could see that big black eye,” he says. The body shape and white underside were easily recognizable up close. Two hours later, another boat further north radioed King, reporting a similar run-in with the same shark.

Great whites are the shark species most often implicated in unprovoked attacks on humans around the world. According to the International Shark Attack File, whites are responsible for 63 deaths and 236 attacks worldwide since 1876. In Massachusetts, a white shark has been implicated in one confirmed fatal attack: in 1936, a swimmer died after an attack off Mattapoisett. On newenglandsharks.com, King mentions two other attacks that may be attributed to white sharks: a fisherman disappeared during a shark attack five miles east of Scituate in 1830, and a book published in 1855 mentions an attack during the 1700s, in which a shark knocked a British expatriate overboard into Boston Harbor and devoured him. Whites are thought to attack humans because they confuse them for harbor seals, staples of their primary diet. Statistically, beachgoers shouldn’t be concerned about shark attacks, but irrational fears die hard. “Some people don’t swim—off Cape Cod—because they think sharks eat people,” Skomal says with incredulity in his voice.

A “Man-eater” Reformed

At least some of this phobia stems from Jaws, the 1975 Steven Spielberg movie about a murderous great white who stalks residents of the Martha’s Vineyard-esque Amity Island. But while the film perpetuates many of the terror-inducing myths surrounding the species, King contends that the film has largely been a boon to the great white, formerly known as “man-eater.” In one scene, Richard Dreyfus’s character identifies the shark prowling the beaches: “It’s a carcharodon carcharias. It’s a great white.”

That scene was “the best thing that ever happened to the white shark,” King says, and indirectly helped lead to federal and state regulations to protect the species. “It’s very hard to get people to be sympathetic to protecting a ‘man-eater,’” King continues. “It’s easier to get them to protect a misunderstood white shark.” Around the same time, the expansion of fisheries brought a shift in research emphasis from vulgar questions of why sharks bite people to questions of their biology. And while unfounded fears persist, Skomal seems satisfied with the public’s shark IQ.

In October 2008, one of Skomal’s collaborators attached five cigar-sized satellite tags to five mako sharks. Every 10 seconds, each of these state-of-the-art devices records the shark’s swimming depth, the water temperature, and the surrounding light levels. The tags will release this year in March and July, float to the water’s surface, and beam the information to a satellite and back to Skomal’s laboratory. Skomal can then extrapolate information on where the shark traveled and what its habitat requirements may be. Though a tag attached to the shark in the 2004 Naushon Island incident malfunctioned, Skomal says successfully attaching satellite tags to white sharks is a constant goal. “The reason we may not see white sharks is because they do something fishermen aren’t aware of…that’s what these tags help to elucidate,” he says. “The more we put out, the more we learn.”

White Sharks in Winter?

While the Cape and Islands shark population diminishes in the winter, a few species remain in the frigid waters. Lamnid sharks, like porbeagles, are one such exception: they can regulate their internal temperatures as much as 25 degrees Fahrenheit above the water temperature. It’s not uncommon for cod fishermen to catch porbeagles in their nets in January and February, Skomal says.

White sharks are also lamnids, and, King says, don’t discount an occasional great white sighting near the Monomoy seal colony in cold weather months. Skomal is more skeptical; he says whites are largely attracted to temperate and tropical waters, and it would be very unlikely to spot them here after fall. He concedes, however, that people—the basis for nearly all shark sighting data—are also unlikely to be spotted on New England waters in cold weather. Skomal loads his answer with caveats, and he ultimately stops short of issuing a hard judgment on the likelihood of cold weather white shark sightings. But history says that’s probably for the best. As he said earlier, “Who would’ve believed a white shark was trapped in a salt pond on a small island in Massachusetts?”

Jeff Harder is associate editor at Cape Cod Life Publications.