A New Study Reveals There are WAY More Great White Sharks Off Cape Cod Than You Think

CJ GUNTHER. Shutterstock Images.

Ignorance, as they say, can be bliss. It's a concept that goes back to the ancient Greeks. The whole story of Pandora's Box is about a woman who was presented by Zeus to Prometheus' brother after the latter stole the secret of fire from the gods. Basically, out of vengeance. Because Pandora was of a curious nature. And the brother Epimetheus owned a box that contained all the troubles of the world. She opened it, and they all flew out like birds. Death. Disease. Famine. Croc shoes. Swampass. The movie Cats. Basically everything that has plagued us since. Still, Nosy Nancy here kept her wits about her enough to slam the lid down on one last curse. Considered to be the worst of them all. And that is, what the Greeks referred to as hope. But essentially meant the ability for us all to know our future. Our ultimate fate. Which would make life unlivable. So … thanks for that? I guess?

Which brings me at long last to the fate of everyone with plans to go into the water off New England this summer. Because while we've all understood that going in above your knees is to basically lay down under the heat lamp at the shark's Old Country Buffet, researchers have actually put a number to the threat these murder torpedoes pose. 

It's fair to say that the families who pile in their cars and cause the massive backups at the Sagamore and Bourne every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day aren't the only ones who spend their summers on Cape Cod. To put in Barstool terms? If you're putting down money on how many sharks hang out off the Cape? Bet the Over. Hard. 

Source - Local shark researchers recently found that about 800 individual white sharks visited the waters off the Cape from 2015 to 2018. This count of 800 sharks is the first-ever estimate of white shark abundance in the North Atlantic Ocean.

The study was published on Thursday in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. 

Megan Winton, lead author of the study and a staff scientist for the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, had revealed this population estimate last month during a new National Geographic special for Sharkfest.

"Cape Cod is the only area in the region where researchers can feasibly monitor the population, and our estimates suggest that the Cape is among the larger white shark hotspots worldwide, which is good news from a conservation standpoint," Winton said. 

Thanks for the happy spin on this number, Megan Winton. Eight hundred Great Whites sounds like really terrific news from a conservation standpoint. Which is to say, if you're trying to conserve vicious, remorseless, perfectly evolved apex predators. But if you're trying to preserve your own life, I'd say that figure is somewhat problematic. The sharks have the home habitat advantage as it is. Even if you're facing them at even strength, we're naked monkeys who are slow in the water. We have no natural defenses, no tentacles or scales, no ability to comically puff ourselves up into a giant inflated ball. We've got no shot at winning that fight. Now factor in that they can come at any one of us 800-on-one? Like I said at the beginning, some things you're just better off not knowing. 

I moved to a beach not far from The Cape over the winter. And I didn't come here just to stay on the land. I could've stayed back in the woods where I was and only had Sasquatches to worry about. So it's not like I'm not going in the water because the Shark Navy has a carrier battle group stationed a few miles down the coast ready to attack without warning. But I'm going to make damned sure I'm not the furthest one out there or in the deepest waters. Even if there were only 80 or 100 Great Whites out there. Knowing what we now know, my days of lining up to be a hot lunch are OVER.