If great white shark swimming into a pond sounds like something out of a movie, that’s because it is, says Greg Skomal. Remember the infamous scene in Jaws where the shark swims into a pond, just where people thought they would be safe? But it happened to us too.
In 2004, I’d never seen a live great white shark in New England, ever. I certainly wasn’t expecting to get a phone call telling me that a huge female great white shark had wandered into a small saltwater pond off Naushon Island, close to Woods Hole, Massachusetts. We named her Gretel.
This was a great opportunity to gather more scientific information about the species in our region. I used a sling spear to attach a satellite tag so we could follow her movements when she returned to the ocean open – the first Atlantic white shark to be satellite-tagged in history. There was only one problem: she didn’t leave the estuary.
It took two weeks and so many hurdles to try to free her from the lagoon. Nothing we tried seemed to work.
Like wildfire, word about the shark spread immediately. People came from all around to get a glimpse of this four-metre female’s dorsal fin slicing through the water as she circled the pond. Some people even tried to kayak to get a closer view and we were afraid for their safety, as well as the wellbeing of the shark, so we closed the area.
To coax her oat of the pond, we had to get her attention, so we worked all her senses. Our first tactic was to lure her back to the ocean by leaving a trail of food but, like the breadcrumbs that Hansel and Gretel leave to find their way back out of the forest, it didn’t work. Our shark didn’t take the bait – literally. We then tried excessive noise an underwater dust cloud and strong electrical fields, but nothing worked.
Ten days in, we had gotten to the point that we knew she had to be physically forced to leave. Honestly, I didn’t want to catch a shark that big by the tail and drag her, so we worked with local weir fishermen to set up a system of nets to force her to the pond’s entrance and, hopefully, back out to sea. That worked…partially. We managed to nudge Gretel out of the main pond, but she moved into the shallows of the broader bay – from the frying pan to the fire. Now, she was stuck in Lackey’s Bay.
Freedom was so close we could taste it, but how would we get her over the sandbars and past the boulder fields linin the bay? Together with the fishers, scientists and environmental police who were helping us, we needed to come up with a new plan fast – I was afraid she would strand in the shallows if we waited too long.
Ultimately, we realised that the shallows of the bay worked to our advantage. We were able to use two boats with high-powered water pumps to literally herd her in the right direction. By pointing the water jets on either side of her, we drove her to the entrance of the bay, over the sandbar, past the boulder fields, and into the deep water of the Vineyard Sound. After two weeks of self-enforced captivity in shallow waters, she was back where she really wanted to be, the open ocean.
White sharks are apex predators and, as such, can be incredibly dangerous. But they’re not the monsters they’re made out to be in the movies. Gretel didn’t harm any humans during her stay in the lagoon. In fact, many people reached out to me during the event and begged me to save her. So I know her visit helped people to realise that, although sharks must be treated with a healthy dose of respect, they are fascinating, not fearsome.
Finally managing to get her back into the open ocean was an unbelievable feeling and I was excited to see the data that would come back from our tag. On that front, I would be incredibly disappointed – our tag malfunctioned. I never heard anything more of Gretel.
I wondered if I’d ever see another of these majestic creatures – at the time, great white shark sightings in the Cape were incredibly rare. I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me I would go on to tag more than 400 white sharks as they came back to New England in the ensuing years.
Greg Skomal is a fisheries biologist, white shark expert and author of several books including “Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark” He spoke to Melissa Hobson about this encounter
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