Someone is over due for a nasty bite this summer

Couple weeks ago I wrote about the first seal attack off the Cape. Now the second one is being reported. When will people start to realize that Massachusetts waters in the summer are pretty dangerous. The second report came yesterday.

30th June 2008

Fourteen passengers on a seal watch boat saw a shark attack and kill a seal yesterday during a cruise to Monomoy Island.

The island, which is a national wildlife refuge, is home to hundreds of seals and also a favored feeding ground of several species of sharks.

Capt. Bob Littlefield is sure the shark he saw rip a seal in half yesterday afternoon was a great white.

"It was a quite a bloody mess," said Littlefield, who has been a captain on Cape Cod for 32 years.

Littlefield was steering a 42-foot, high-speed catamaran owned by Monomoy Island Excursions of Harwich Port on the ocean side of Monomoy, where hundreds of seals were sunning and swimming, when suddenly there was a commotion in the water.

Littlefield, who said he had always wanted to see a shark eat a seal, turned the boat toward the area, which quickly became red with blood. As the boat got closer, the shark went under, taking half of the gray seal with it. The tour captain estimated the seal to be 300 to 400 pounds, and the shark to be between 14 and 16 feet.

Here are my favorites quotes: England Aquarium research scientist John Mandelman said it may have been a great white. But it also could have been a mako or thresher, he said. The latter species are also large fish, but not as large as the great white.

Are you really kidding me? Its not a white shark? What a asinine comment.

The last documented human death in a Massachusetts shark attack was in 1936, according to Tony LaCasse, spokesman for the New England Aquarium

And this death was by a white shark off Cape Cod.

LaCasse said there have been more reports of sharks attacking seals near Monomoy Island in recent years, but that doesn't necessarily mean more sharks.

"What we do know is that there are many more seal observation boats than ever before," he said.

So no way could there be more shark, just more boats. Dumb ass. Why can't someone just step up and say that people need to take precautions or else someone will get attacked. Most likely a surfer.