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Even the sharks are excited about Shark Week.
The Discovery Channel’s annual week-long celebration of all things shark started Sunday, amid real life sightings of sharks along the Northeast coast throughout the weekend.
In the most recent incident, reported today by the Huffington Post, a 6-foot sand shark swam up onto the sand at a Seaside Park beach in New Jersey on Saturday.
No word whether “Jersey Shore” queen Snooki was among the terrified.
The shark swam up to the shoreline, terrifying beach-goers, before righting itself and heading back out to sea.
The sand shark incident was the third time in July that a shark sighting forced swimmers out of the water. If it were me, I don’t think I’d go back in.
Watch the video below:
Reuters reported last Wednesday that four great white sharks had been sighted around the town of Chatham, Mass., on Cape Cod early last week. One shark was tagged off of South Beach in Chatham on Tuesday after a state expedition.
On Friday, The Associated Press reported that a five mile stretch of a Cape Cod beach was closed after three more great white sightings, including one swimming about 100 yards away from beach goers on the sand.
In the CBS News segment above, shark experts cite the explosion in the gray seal population, as well as warmer weather, for drawing great whites to the Northeast this early in the summer.
I’m all for sharks on my TV, but seeing one while I’m enjoying a swim might be a little much.
And while the New Jersey sand shark is the most recent sighting, the Cape Cod sharks are still out there.
A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Division of Mariner Fisheries told the Boston Globe on Monday that a spotter pilot sighted two great white sharks of the coast of Chatham on Sunday.
Chatham’s South Beach, a hot spot for these sharks, has been closed indefinitely, Harbormaster Stuart Smith told the Boston Globe.
Smith also told the Globe that the sharks have been seen in three to four feet of water off of South Beach.
In this rather creepy instance of life imitating art, “Jaws,” the 1975 movie that scared me out of beach side romps for weeks as a child, was filmed off of Cape Cod on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.
Wow this is amazing! I did not know cape cod had sharks. I am actually looking into some Cape Cod vacation rentals right now, and had no idea! After reading this though, I’m pretty excited to be able to see some when we go. But I guarantee you that I wont spend too much time in the water!
Peter Benchley sure knew what he was talking about when he wrote “Jaws”, and IMO it was no coincidence that the filming of the movie took place at the Cape and not off Long Island. I’ve been going up to the Cape since the early 1960s and hearing of Great White Sharks off the coastline is no major surprise, believe me. I would not be surprised to hear of Great Whites off the coast of Connecticut these days either.