This has been shark summer in Cape Cod, especially for Great Whites. A recent shark attack was caught on tape, but luckily the victim was only a seal carcass. A family on a fishing trip caught a great white feasting right near their boat on video.
Peter Mottur, from Portsmouth, R.I., and his family were on a boat around 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday just 50 feet off the shores on Monomoy Island off Chatham when they spotted the shark.
"There was a great white shark gnawing on a seal. We were right on top of it," said Mottur, 43, as quoted by the Cape Cod Times. "The shark wasn't scared and circled the boat for a few minutes. And it just kept coming back and nibbling on the seal."
Mottur estimated the shark to be about 15 feet long, almost half the size of his 35-foot boat. It spent about 10 minutes feasting on the seal carcass.
"It was pretty gory, unfortunately," Mottur said told the Times "There was just about half of a seal there. He took a couple big lunges at it, thrashing the seal around like a rag doll."
Seeing the shark feast in its natural habitat was an amazing and scary sight for Mottur , his wife, Debbie Lipsett, his mother, Libby, and his two children, Abigail, 11, and Charlie, 9.
"My kids were excited but terrified at the same time," said Mottur. "Nobody panicked but the adrenaline was certainly rushing."
After reviewing the photos and videos taken by Mottur and his family, shark expert Greg Skomal confirmed that the feeding shark was a great white.
"This is great video evidence that these sharks are here for the seals," Skomal told the Times.
The shark had a tag and Skomal believes it is the same shark that state officials tagged the week before. Skomal and his team have been tagging the sharks for several years as they monitor their movement and behaviors.
"We won't be able to tell which shark it is until we check the date on the local receiver in that area," Skomal said.
Skomal is thrilled over the footage that shows the shark feasting as it is hard to come by.
"What makes this such a great opportunity is that we don't get a lot of direct evidence of their behavior when they eat seals," Skomal said. "To actually have video footage of a shark eating is very rare for us."
"It was spectacular to see something that beautiful," said Mottur. "To see it in person, how ginormous it was, right next to me, was very overwhelming and very exhilarating."
There have been an unusually high number of great white shark sightings off of Cape Cod this summer. A man was even attacked by a great white last month in Truro.
Experts believe the sharks are in the area due to an increasingly high seal population around Cape Cod. The sharks are there to feast on their favorite victim, as the video proves.
The great white shark can grow to 20 feet in length and weigh up to 5,000 pounds.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
