Latest news with #AtlanticWhiteSharkConservancy
USA Today
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Will we need a bigger boat? Martha's Vineyard awash in 'Jaws' at 50 mania
Will we need a bigger boat? Martha's Vineyard awash in 'Jaws' at 50 mania Amid a feeding frenzy of interest in the 50-year movie milestone, the island is celebrating and educating on all things sharks. Show Caption Hide Caption Athlete marks 'Jaws' 50th anniversary with 60-mile swim Swimmer Lewis Pugh circumnavigated Martha's Vineyard to mark the 50th anniversary of the movie "Jaws" and draw attention to the plight of sharks. In the summer of 1974, A. Bowdoin Van Riper had just gotten out of school when Hollywood came to town. Van Riper, then 11 years old, went down to the beach on Martha's Vineyard with a friend to watch the filming of what would become Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws." When a crew member called out for volunteers, the two raced into the water and pretended to panic for a scene in which two kids frighten swimmers using a cardboard fin. 'It was a very, very short brush with Hollywood, but it is still − after 50 years − cool to know that I played a very, very, very small part in helping the film get made,' Van Riper said. Like many locals who helped create the first summer blockbuster, Van Riper is now gearing up for an elaborate, summer-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of "Jaws." Upon its release on June 20, 1975, 'Jaws' struck fear in the hearts of beachgoers nationwide, leading to an increase in shark phobias and trophy hunting that helped decimate shark populations. Though viewers say the movie scared them away from beaches, pools and even bath tubs for a time, that fear has become an American fascination. 'Jaws' fandom has become a huge tourism draw for the island and some proprietors are expecting their biggest summer ever. As the population − and reputation − of sharks off the coast of Massachusetts has begun to rebound, many are using the 50th anniversary of "Jaws" to remind the public how important sharks are and how to stay safe as beachgoers increasingly find themselves in close proximity to the predators. 'At the time 'Jaws' came out, we virtually knew nothing about sharks and nobody knew how important of a role they play in their ecosystem,' said Megan Winton, a scientist at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy on nearby Cape Cod. 'We're still honestly learning new things about that every day, but learning how to live with great white sharks is tough.' 'Jaws' scared swimmers out of the ocean: See the real locations of Amity's terror 'Jaws' fans flooding Martha's Vineyard On Martha's Vineyard − the real-life version of Spielberg's fictional Amity Island − planning for the 50th anniversary of "Jaws" has been in the works for years. There will be screenings of the film and a documentary about its production, a live performance of the movie's famous score, and parties where fans can meet some of the cast and crew, said Erica Ashton and Alessandra Hagerty, executive and deputy directors of the Martha's Vineyard Chamber of Commerce. Most shops and restaurants are decked out with "Jaws"-themed merchandise from custom-poured shark candles to a bloody-looking cranberry sweet treat at Murdick's Fudge. Even the local baseball team − the Sharks − will be playing this weekend. 'There's like 'Jaws' mania, pretty much,' Hagerty said. In the peak summer months, the island can see as many as 200,000 visitors, according to the Chamber of Commerce. But with hotels fully booked and anniversary weekend events nearly all sold out, officials are expecting a surge of visitors that could be tens of thousands higher than normal, far exceeding previous events related to the film. Michael Currid said he has already had 'exponentially more' advance bookings for his 'Jaws' walking tour than he has in the past 15 years. 'I'm confident that, at least from the 'Jaws' side, this will be my biggest season ever,' said Currid, owner of Edgartown Tour Company. Currid leads groups on walking tours of Edgartown that mirror the path taken by one of the film's protagonists, police chief Martin Brody, played by Roy Scheider. On his full island tour, he takes visitors to filming locations farther afield such as the fishing village of Menemsha, where Brody and grizzled shark hunter Quint, portrayed by Robert Shaw, set sail. Often, Currid pulls up clips from the movie on his iPad to show tourists just how little has changed on the island since the film was shot. 'One home may have added bay windows,' he said. 'On one street that I show, the biggest change is the color of the fire hydrant.' Cape Cod's white sharks: The new stars of eco-tourism 'Jaws' events urge tourists to 'respect the locals' "Jaws" fans have already begun flocking to the Martha's Vineyard Museum to check out memorabilia and movie props such as the one-eyed head of a fisherman attacked by the shark in the film. The exhibition, which dominates the museum's entire second floor, has been five years in the making, according to Cathy Mayone, the museum's managing director. 'We've been very busy ever since Memorial Day, when we opened up the exhibit, and we are seeing a lot of people,' she said. 'Every day I walk through the museum and I talk to people that are visiting the island for the first time.' Though much of the programming focuses on the islanders who helped make the movie, the museum will also hold a lesson on sharks for kids and a talk by ocean conservation advocate Wendy Benchley, widow of "Jaws" author Peter Benchley, Mayone said. Both the late Benchley and Spielberg have expressed regret for the impact the book and the film had on real sharks. 'Part of our exhibit about 'Jaws' is a room devoted to teaching people more about sharks as a species, and efforts to understand them, protect them,' said Van Riper, the museum's research librarian who is gearing up to deliver a three-hour deep dive on the film to a sold-out crowd. 'So we hope we can do our bit to promote that whole 'respect the locals' attitude toward them.' Locals aren't the only ones using the anniversary to draw attention to the threats facing sharks. Lewis Pugh, a long distance swimmer from England, braved the island's chilly waters in just a pair of speedos, a swim cap and goggles in a bid to raise awareness. Pugh embarked on a brutal 12-day swim around Martha's Vineyard not long after the first shark sighting of the season in the area. Though he didn't spot any sharks on this journey, he did feel wary in the water after breaking the unspoken rule among swimmers by talking so frequently about the animals. 'I saw ("Jaws") when I was about 12 years old. I haven't seen it again. I'm frightened of sharks. I'm normal, OK?' he said with a laugh. 'But I'm terrified of a world without sharks.' Though more than a third of Americans say they're afraid of sharks and some attribute that fear to "Jaws" directly, Pugh said sharks are the ones in real danger. Sharks bite just a few dozen people each year, but humans kill millions of sharks worldwide. Pugh − who celebrated finishing the swim with an ice cream on the beach before heading to a U.N. conference on oceans in France − called the killings 'an ecocide.' 'We need to, No. 1, educate ourselves about them. No. 2, we need to respect them. And then lastly, we really need to protect them.' Shark research and conservation still has 'a long way to go' Great white shark populations in the Atlantic may have declined by as much as 70% before they were designated as a prohibited species in most American waters in 1997, said Winton, of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. Populations around Massachusetts began to rebound as protections increased for sharks and seals, their preferred prey, Winton said. 'What we're seeing on Cape Cod, really is, it's a huge conservation success story,' she said. With that success comes new challenges. The animals spend about half their time hunting for seals in shallow waters offshore, and when swimmers and surfers get in their way, deadly encounters can occur, Winton said. In the summer of 2018, one man narrowly survived after being bitten by a shark on the Cape Cod National Seashore, and another died after a shark bit him while he was boogie-boarding. 'People were scared. They wanted to do something about it, and so there were calls for lethal control measures,' Winton said. Winton said conflicts with humans remain the biggest threat to white sharks in the waters of Massachusetts, adding that researchers have increasingly come across sharks with boat strike injuries. White sharks are still considered 'vulnerable,' one step below endangered, by the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. And though "Jaws," particularly actor Richard Dreyfuss' portrayal of oceanographer Matt Hooper, has inspired many marine biologists to study white sharks, Winton said researchers still don't have answers to basic questions about their biology, such as where they mate and give birth. 'We've come a long way since 'Jaws' in terms of shark conservation and our understanding of sharks and our appreciation for them and how important they are to the health of our oceans,' Winton said. 'But we've still got a long way to go.'
CBS News
26-05-2025
- Science
- CBS News
Why researchers in Massachusetts are putting cameras on great white sharks
Researchers on Cape Cod are using "shark spy technology" again this summer to monitor the movements of sharks and help keep people safe in the waters off Massachusetts. Memorial Day weekend is usually around the time when shark sightings begin off Cape Cod. Earlier this month, the first sighting of the season was reported when a great white shark was seen biting a seal off Nantucket. Atlantic White Shark Conervancy Megan Winton, senior scientist at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, said researchers for a second straight summer will be attempting to put cameras onto the backs of some sharks when they tag them. The camera tags are used to get a view from the shark's perspective. "We're using the latest and greatest in shark spy technology as I like to call it to learn more about the movements and the behaviors of these animals here when they're off of Cape Cod as well as when they move north into Canadian waters," Winton said. It helps researchers study interactions between sharks and fishermen. "Cape Cod Bay is very similar but very different to the outer Cape, so we're going to learn more about how the shark are using that environment there and we're also hoping to get better information on interactions with fishermen, because every year we get more and more reports of white sharks stealing fish off of fisherman's lines because for a shark that's a free snack, right? And who doesn't like free snacks?" When are sharks in Massachusetts waters? White shark activity in New England peaks in July, August and September. As the water begins to cool, the sharks start to swim south. Winton said information learned by tagging sharks keeps people safe. "It's really important for us to understand not only how they're feeding on seals here, but what they're doing in the shallow water off our beaches so we can provide that information to the people, to the towns, to the beach managers so everyone can be shark smart when they go to the beach this summer," Winton said.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fifty years after ‘Jaws', great white sharks remain a Cape Cod fixture
Quint, Chief Brody, Matt Hooper — those were some of the characters moviegoers got to know 50 years ago this summer when the blockbuster 'Jaws' was released. And, oh yes, there was Bruce: the collective name given to the various mechanical maneaters who terrorized Amity Island. Back in 1975, the premise of the movie notwithstanding, great white sharks were rarely seen off the Cape Cod coast. In decades prior, their numbers declined precipitously due to overfishing, accidental catchment and loss of their favorite food in the area, seals. But in 1972, the Marine Mammal Protection Act became law — giving a boost to the seal population in New England. Twenty-five years later, Great White sharks gained federal protection, as well. The end result: shark and seal numbers are rebounding. In one recent four-year period, researchers counted more than 800 white shark sightings off the Cape Cod coast — and there's no reason to believe that number will do anything but go up. Human encounters with sharks remain exceedingly rare — but they have an over-sized effect on the psyche of Cape communities and its image as a vacation spot. The last fatal shark attack happened off a beach in Wellfleet in 2018 when 26-year-old Arthur Medici of Revere was killed by a shark while riding a boogie board. At the time, it was the first shark-related fatality on the Cape in 82 years. 'We're learning a lot about sharks and shark biology,' said Megan Winton, PhD, a scientist associated with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. 'But at the end of the day our work is really all about people. When Arthur Medici was boogie-boarding and was killed by a white shark it just tore the community apart. And that's always your worst day as a shark biologist.' Tuesday, the Conservancy held its annual media day, to reveal what measures it's taking to track shark movements off the Cape this summer and fall. 'We've got camera-tag systems, we've got drones,' said Greg Skomal, a marine biologist with the Massachusetts Department of Marine Fisheries and an avid shark researcher. 'We've got newer technologies that give us a sense of what these animals are doing every second of their day.' That invasion of shark privacy has a goal beyond learning more about the creatures. The Conservancy shares its data in real time so as to protect the public from potential encounters with sharks. It accomplishes this tracking with a series of data collection units positioned off the outer and inner Cape coasts. 'Those patterns will help us determine where the shark is most likely to be, what time of day and what areas,' Skomal said. 'It is the 50th anniversary of Jaws and many of us have that film in our mind. But the bottom line is sharks are not here to eat people. If they were here to eat people, we'd have a lot more shark bites.' Skomal said sharks identify preferred prey through smell — but that there are so many seals a nearby human's scent can get lost in the mix. His first bit of advice is to steer clear of seals which are usually found in shallow areas off the coast. 'They're not here to eat you, but they have made mistakes and can make mistakes,' he said. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
First white shark of season confirmed off New England after dead seal found on Massachusetts beach
BOSTON - Beachgoers, beware! The New England Aquarium in Boston said the first great white shark of the season was spotted lurking in the waters off Nantucket over the weekend. According to the aquarium, a witness noticed a pool of blood off Smith's Point in Madaket on the western end of the island on Sunday, May 11, and then saw a seal swimming toward the shore with a shark in pursuit. Groundbreaking Research Shows Great White Sharks May Change Color To Better Hunt Their Prey After examining photos of the seal, John Chisholm, an adjunct scientist in the aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, it was confirmed that the bite did indeed come from a white shark. "This is the time of year when we like to remind people to be 'shark smart' as white sharks return to the inshore waters of New England, where they'll hunt seals and other prey through the summer and into the fall," Chisholm said. So, what does it mean to be shark smart? Can Lights Help Prevent Shark Attacks? Chisholm said people heading to the beach need to be aware of sharks' presence in shallow water and avoid areas where seals are present or schools of fish are visible. It's also advised to stay close to shore, where emergency responders can get to you if you need help. Beachgoers can report shark sightings and can be alerted to shark activity with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy's Sharktivity app. What Are The Most Dangerous Beaches In America? The New England Aquarium has a team of nine scientists in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life who study sharks, including porbeagle and nurse sharks, as well as thresher, blue, mako, sandbar, and sand tiger sharks. Officials said that, depending on the time of year, over 15 shark species reside in the waters off New article source: First white shark of season confirmed off New England after dead seal found on Massachusetts beach
Forbes
24-03-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Maine's Great White Sharks And What We Know So Far
New research reveals that over the past 13 years, more than 100 great white sharks have been ... More detected off Maine's coast, with the majority of sightings occurring in recent years and in relatively shallow waters. Over the past 13 years, great white sharks have increasingly made their presence known off Maine's coast. More than 100 individual sharks have been detected, with the majority of sightings occurring in recent years and notably in shallow waters. This shift in behavior has prompted researchers to dive deeper into understanding what these sharks are doing in Maine's waters, and their latest findings have just been published in Frontiers in Marine Science. The research is the result of collaboration between the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and several other organizations. 'We are excited to have this study published and continue to expand our understanding of white sharks in the western North Atlantic and the coastal waters in Maine,' said Matt Davis, the lead author of the study and a scientist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources. 'This work could not have been done without the collaboration of many researchers and organizations, and we thank everyone involved.' This study is particularly significant because it marks the first time that researchers have been able to track the movements of white sharks over time in the region. The effort started in 2020, following a tragic event when a swimmer was killed by a white shark off the coast of Harpswell, marking Maine's first recorded fatal shark bite. In response to this incident, officials at the Maine DMR worked closely with other groups to expand the study of white sharks and their behavior in Maine's coastal waters. The team used an array of receivers placed along Maine's coastline, from York and Ogunquit to Kennebunk and Reid State Park. These receivers were designed to detect sharks that had been tagged off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Hilton Head, South Carolina. 'We are excited to have this study published and continue to expand our understanding of white ... More sharks in the western North Atlantic and the coastal waters in Maine,' said Matt Davis, the lead author of the study and a scientist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources. 'This work could not have been done without the collaboration of many researchers and organizations, and we thank everyone involved.' With the data collected over the years, researchers were able to develop a clearer picture of the sharks' movements and behavior patterns in the area. The findings show that these sharks are spending time in waters less than 50 meters (164 feet) deep off Maine, with peak sightings occurring between July and September; this aligns with previous observations of white sharks using similar habitats in other regions. But what stands out in this recent study is how often these sharks are detected during daylight hours. Half of the shark detections occurred during the day, a time when beaches are typically busy with human activity. This was particularly true along areas like Ogunquit, Kennebunk, and Head Beach in Phippsburg, which had some of the highest numbers of shark detections. Despite the uptick in shark sightings, the team also found that the frequency of white shark detections along Maine's beaches was still relatively low compared to other regions where these sharks are known to frequent. For example, areas off Cape Cod, which has long been known as a hotspot for white sharks, saw far more frequent detections. The team emphasized that while the presence of sharks in Maine waters is notable, there is no reason to believe that humans are at significant risk. While sharks are often feared, they are a vital part of the marine ecosystem, playing an important role in regulating the populations of other marine species. Their presence in Maine's waters suggests a healthy marine environment, which could be beneficial for the overall ecosystem. The scientists hope the findings of this study will help inform future management strategies in Maine. By understanding where and when white sharks are most likely to be detected, researchers and policymakers can better communicate with the public about how to safely enjoy Maine's beaches without unnecessary fear. As Maine continues to see more shark detections in its waters, studies like this will be crucial in ensuring that shark conservation efforts continue while also keeping human safety a priority.
