Cory's Shearwater - passing over unidentified shark attacking a (probable) Gray Seal, Head of the Meadow Beach, North Truro, Barnstable Co., MA. August 25th, 2017.
We had a fairly close encounter with a shark on our family holiday on the Outer Cape last week. Head of the Meadow Beach, on Cape Cod National Sea Shore was our favored beach for swimming and Matan loved the surf there spending 3 - 5 hours in the water each day. On August 25th Matan, who was taking a brief rest from the water and drying off, leaped up yelling "shark, shark - everyone get out of the water". A huge bloody commotion was taking place right in front of us, easily less than 75 meters from shore, and the 20-30 people in the surf at the time!!
In just a few seconds it was all over and an eerie calm fell over the beach as everyone stood on the shore hoping for another sighting but it wasn't to be. On a personal level, I was surprised that no shark fins were observed before the attack and equally surprised at how quickly a huge pool of blood appeared in the water. Moreover, I was blown away at just how quickly our nine year old identified exactly what was going on in front of him and his concern to get everyone out of the water.
I'm not sure that the shark or the prey item can be identified with certainty but we think the shark was very likely a Great White Shark and the prey, a Gray Seal. We'd been visiting the beach every day during our break and shark sightings were surprisingly frequent, usually taking place in late afternoon. After each sighting, the life guards raised a red flag indicating unsafe swimming conditions which would remain in place for at least an hour.
As for Matan, well he never went back into the water for the rest of the vacation, pretty remarkable for a kid who'd been spending 3 - 5 hours in the surf everyday up to that point. This encounter definitely spooked him!
Gray Seal - hauled up on the beach just after the attack. Very clearly badly injured but probably not
the seal involved in the encounter that we observed.
The mandatory 'no swimming' red flag goes up after the observation.
Scanning for sharks the following morning over a flat calm Atlantic Ocean.
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