Seasonal white shark sightings around Massachusetts have increased in recents years, and with a growing population of gray seals on the Outer Cape, it’s become a popular location for white sharks, according to Mass.gov.
Since 2009, Massachusetts’ shark program tagged more than 120 white sharks to “study the movement of this species.”
While sharks tend to leave the coast of Cape Cod for the southeastern U.S. and to the Gulf Coast come fall, Bay Staters have a few more months before sharks migrate from their swimming grounds.
Since last week, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy reported at least three confirmed shark sightings — two around Cape Cod and another off the Gulf of Maine.
LeeBeth was the only tagged shark spotted during the first week of June. But she was not detected off of Cape Cod during that time. Courtesy of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.Atlantic White Shark Conservancy
On Sunday, June 16, signs of a great shark were reported off the southern coast of Chatham with a dead seal washed ashore, according to the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s shark tracking app, Sharktivity.
Another dead seal washed ashore this week off the coast of Chatham, though this time off the Stage Harbor Inlet on Friday, June 21. Sharktivity reported signs around 11:09 a.m. Friday.
Further up north earlier in the week, another dead seal was reported off the Gulf Coast of Maine on Tuesday, June 18, around 9 a.m., according to Sharktivity.
While no satellite data shows any of these sightings were tagged sharks, one shark that tends to frequent the area is a 14-foot-long female white shark named LeeBeth.
LeeBeth was first tagged by the White Shark Conservancy on Dec. 8, 2023, according to the conservancy’s website and has been seen previously this year swimming off North Carolina’s coast on June 3, according to the conservancy’s Sharktivity app.
She was next seen four days later in the north Atlantic Ocean at around 8:48 p.m. on June 7. LeeBeth zigzagged east to north and was detected nine more times until the 10th and latest time she was detected on Tuesday, June 11, at around 8:02 a.m.
She swam 31 nautical miles northeast of Nantucket and 40 nautical miles southeast of Barnstable, according to the National Weather Service latitude and longitude distance calculator.
