Any updates on the shark?

[marydmjj]

Just curious if the shark is still stuck in Woods Hole?

 

[marydmjj]

 

[The Duchess]

As of this morning's local news (Southern Mass), she is still there!

 

[EsmeraldaX]

She is still there as of this morning. Poor thing. I hope they can get her to go back out to sea. Crowds are gathering.

Maybe she is a weird shark and likes the attention

 

[Maleficent13]

They need to call in the Crocodile Hunter. He'd have her out of there in a jiffy, mate!

 

[phisigprincess]

There's a shark stuck somewhere?!?! Yikes!! I'm terrified of sharks. I'll stay away from that place!

 

[Rippington'sFan]

NAUSHON ISLAND - State wildlife experts planned to huddle early this morning to decide their latest strategy for moving Gretel the great white shark out of shallow coastal waters and back to sea.


The shark dubbed Gretel was left untouched yesterday, as experts wanted her to rest after electricity, water guns and nets were used to drive her from a lagoon on Friday. Efforts to return Gretel to the open ocean will resume this week.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Over the weekend, the 14-foot fish silently circled a shallow Lackey's Bay inlet off Naushon Island, just beyond the entrance to the secluded lagoon where she spent 11 days before fishermen teased her out on Friday.

The female shark has apparently found the inlet as difficult to escape as the lagoon.

In fact, not only is the inlet shallower - 12 feet at its deepest, compared with 20 - but a long, narrow sandbar seems to block its way to the ocean.

Greg Skomal, the state Division of Marine Fisheries' shark expert, does not think the animal has deliberately lingered in shallow water, and does not think it is pregnant.

"Her instincts tell her to stay deep," he said in a brief interview yesterday as he prepared for renewed attempts to nudge the shark seaward today. "She's probably concerned about getting out."

Great white sharks are known to visit Atlantic coastal waters, he said, but they typically prefer deep water and rarely show themselves.







For a great white to dilly-dally a few feet from shore in the North Atlantic for two weeks is unprecedented, he said.

Gretel - a nickname Skomal endorsed during a CNN interview - was spotted in a lagoon at this private island near Woods Hole two weeks ago tomorrow.

Ever since, the shark has provided a silent but awesome spectacle for hundreds of local boaters and tourists who have hired charter boat operators to bring them as close as possible.

State environmental police have been enforcing an emergency security zone to keep sightseers at least 1,000 yards away. A spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs said officials might expand the zone today, but did not say by how much.

Wildlife officials had promised to return the shark to sea by Saturday, but were unable to meet the self-imposed deadline.


They did not resume efforts yesterday because they were expecting potentially hazardous high winds, said the spokeswoman, Jennifer Flagg.

They also wanted to allow the shark to rest after biologists and fishermen used electricity, blasts from a water gun and a series of nets to drive it from the lagoon on Friday, she said.

Although they have lately underscored the shark's potential danger to people, wildlife officials want the shark to survive for scientific purposes.

Skomal fixed a data transmitter to the shark that could reveal new information about its customary lifestyle.

Neither Skomal nor Flagg described the means biologists would use today to move the shark over the sandbar and out to sea, but Skomal indicated the fish would not be left to its own devices.

"She's going to have to be motivated to get over that shallow bar," he said.

Skomal said this shark's behavior should help to revise its species' reputation as a savage man-eating predator, a public image fostered by the "Jaws" movies.

"Clearly some of the myths people believe about white sharks have been shattered by this animal," he said. "She's not aggressive."

(Published: October 4, 2004)

 

[monkeyboy]

Maybe Oscar got him

 

[Rippington'sFan]

I added a picture of the shark taken from the Cape Cod Times. Anybody want to go swimming?

 

[Disney Doll]

I still wouldn't be getting too close to her!

 

[General Custer]

Think we have it sorted now.

 

[Tinkerbelle739]

 

[phisigprincess]

Eeks!! I'd be far, far away from that one!! Thanks for the post Rippington'sFan!

 

[The Duchess]

I think the 4 o'clock new just said that Gretel has started to head out...not confirmed.

I could have sworn someone said they named her Artemis...

 

[aprincessmom]

Artemis left the harbor according to the DMF at about 1 today.

 

[Rippington'sFan]

By ERIC GERSHON
STAFF WRITER
FALMOUTH - And on the 14th day the great fish sprinted toward the sea.

And the people were glad.

And for now she knows the joy of deep water.

"I was a little nervous that she would turn around," said Greg Skomal, the biologist who led the team of scientists and fishermen that drove the 14-foot great white shark away from the coast yesterday.

But the shark seemed bent on the deep.

"She's probably in Vineyard Sound right now," Skomal said three hours after the big fish sped to freedom across a sandbar. "My guess is she's in deep water and wants to stay there."

Spotted on Sept. 21 by residents of Naushon Island, private land in the Elizabeth chain, the 14-foot shark circled inland waters for two weeks, allowing unprecedented human access to one of the ocean's most powerful creatures.

Yesterday wildlife officials used gas-powered water hoses to drive the 1,700-pound fish over a long, broad sandbar that seemed to trap it in Lackey's Bay, mere feet from the Naushon shore.

They first tried guiding the shark over the sandbar with ropes meant to simulate nets, which sharks don't like, but the fish wasn't fooled.

"In the end, it was the hoses that pushed it out to sea," Diodati said.

Four men in two small boats frothed the water around the shark, making it uncomfortable enough to risk swimming over the sandbar.

When it did, said Dave Peters, Commissioner of the state Department of Fish and Game, "We're all on the boat going 'Go, go, go!' "

A television news helicopter filmed the fish as it dashed towards Martha's Vineyard.

The shark lived in a shallow Naushon lagoon - once a popular swimming hole - for at least 10 days before wildlife experts ushered it into Lackey's Bay last Friday with weir nets, bursts of electricity, and blasts of water.

Over the weekend the fish lingered in an even shallower inlet, unwilling to pass over a long, broad sandbar between it and the ocean beyond.

All attempts to lure the fish away with food - false albacore and bluefish - failed, and Skomal attributed its lack of appetite to stress.

"It's like finding yourself locked in a closet," Skomal said. "You're not really thinking about food."

Wildlife officials said they viewed the fish's bloodless departure as a victory for science, for the humane treatment of wildlife - and for the great white shark in particular.

Depicted as a hungry man-eater in the "Jaws" books and movies, the 1,700-pound female shark did not harm or attempt to harm any people in two weeks close to shore.

"We did dispel the great 'Jaws' myth of the 1970s," said Peters.

Except for attaching a data-gathering device to the shark's fin, wildlife experts never touched the fish.

"We are very proud to have created a standard of respect for this animal," said Paul Diodati, director of the Division of Marine Wildlife.

Given the great white's reputation as a ferocious predator willing to attack boats to get at the people inside, wildlife experts might have been forced to treat the shark as a menace, as some weekend boaters wished.

"We're convinced if we didn't get the shark out of there, it might have become very stressed and ended in a very different way for the shark," Diodati said.

The state at no point considered killing the shark, and in fact adopted an emergency regulation prohibiting the harassment of great whites in Massachusetts waters.

The regulation remains in effect for now, as does a prohibition on boating and swimming within 1,000 yards of Naushon. A net blocks the entrance to the lagoon, where the shark spent most of its time.

This morning wildlife officials plan to survey local waters from a Coast Guard helicopter, looking for signs of the fish.

They acknowledged the shark's behavior, like that of any wild animal, was unpredictable, and that the fish, or another great white, could return.


"I want to see if I can locate her," Skomal said. "I don't believe I will - but you never know."

 

[Serena]

good news for the shark

 

[marydmjj]

Thanks for the info. I find Great White's fascinating...but a little scary. Gotta love "Shark Week".