Great white sharks are increasing off Cape Cod, and learning where to find an easy meal. Photo: Gerald Schömbs//Unsplash
Off Cape Cod, fishermen have been hooking fish, but pulling up empty lines. Sharks have been stealing their catch.
In a National Geographic article, fishermen explained that they first started losing their catches about eight years ago, but it’s become increasingly common in the past three years.
While white shark predation events had been filmed from above water, according to great white shark expert Gregory Skomal, he had never seen it captured underwater. Photographer Brian Skerry put together a housing and line contraption to try to be one of the first to document this type of hunting.
On June 29, in the waters off New England, he finally got what he was looking for.
A juvenile female great white darted out of the darkness of the ocean and snagged the fish hooked on the back of a boat.
“This speaks to the fact that this whole area is growing in terms of the restoration of the marine ecosystem,” Skerry said. “Sharks have been shown to play an outsized role in keeping marine ecosystems healthy.”
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