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A close encounter of the great white kind off Chatham

E-mail|Link|Comments () August 19, 2009 06:55 PM

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Two kayakers reported a possible sighting of a great white shark attacking a seal off of Chatham on Saturday, and a state expert says the account rings true.

Lurking off Chatham?

"They're intelligent people that saw something so we're taking it at face value," said Greg Skomal, the shark expert for the Division of Marine Fisheries.

He said the report came from an area where similar sightings have been made in the past.

"We think it's a great white shark. There's not many species of sharks in New England that would attack a seal. … It's certainly not a new phenomenon. It's a natural event that's been going on for a few years," he said.

The two men were paddling at about 8:45 a.m. Saturday a quarter to a third of a mile off Chatham Light Beach, said Skomal.

They reported hearing a loud splash, seeing a seal breaching the water, and a shark fin about four feet from the seal. The fin was black and extended about a foot above the water.

The seal then swam toward the kayaks and surfaced just five feet from them with "a big cloud of blood surrounding him," said Bruce Bean, 57, of Newton, who was kayaking with Rod MacKinnon of Brewster.

"There was so much blood in the water when he surfaced that we couldn't see past his head and shoulders" to determine the extent of his injuries, Bean said.

The two men pulled their kayaks together so as to appear bigger to the shark, a piece of advice one of them had once received from a shark expert. Then they continued on their trip.

Bean said the incident happened fast and wasn't particularly frightening, perhaps because the men didn't actually see the shark. But he said it did give him second thoughts about future kayak trips.

"I think I might choose someplace where there's less seals," he said.

Skomal said it was the first great white sighting he's aware of this year.

In July 2008, the carcass of a young great white washed up on a beach in Nantucket after a possible sighting by lifeguards on a Martha's Vineyard beach. In August 2007, experts said after examining the carcasses of two dead seals that they had been attacked by a great white off Chatham. In 2004, a 1,700-pound great white was trapped for two weeks in a lagoon on Naushon Island, off Cape Cod, which gave Skomal and other researchers another rare opportunity to study the animal.

A giant great white shark was featured as the villain in the 1975 hit movie "Jaws," making an indelible mark on popular culture and exacerbating many people's fear of sharks. The last shark-related death in New England was in 1936.