 Bill Gates’ popular chart on World’s Deadliest Animals tries to visualize shows mosquitoes as the most despicable creature on earth. But it makes hippos, wolves and sharks look worse than they are and lets off humans (the true villains) way too easy. Keep reading Bill Gates’ Mosquito Chart Too Harsh on Wolves, Sharks, Hippos; Too Easy on Humans  Spinner sharks launch themselves out of the water while feeding on schools of small fish. See them jump and spin among surfers. Keep reading Go see sharks jump and spin off Palm Beach  Cape Cod revels in its shark attack. You’ll see all kinds of shark souvenirs and you can try to see one on a boat tour to see seals (what the sharks are after). Keep reading Cape Cod loves its seals–and now sharks, too  By calling manta rays a vulnerable species, scientists hope to stop or at least track the market in its gills. Used in Chinese medicine, the ray population is down 30% in 10 years. Keep reading Manta rays get some protection from fishermen hunting their gills  BLM kills the idea of the NV Pickens sanctuary late on Friday without much explanation. Long Island may no longer be the last place in US without coyotes; one spotted in Queens. Wales hopes fin whale sightings mean whale watching. Georgia hunter gets away with online remote shotguns to kill feral hogs. Keep reading BLM dumps Pickens’ horse sanctuary; Coyote breaches Long Island; Wales gets Whales  Belarus fox shoots hunter–but prosecutors doubt it; Rescued FL bobcat an online hit Keep reading Belarus fox shoots hunter–but prosecutors doubt it; Rescued FL bobcat an online hit  Santa Monica Aquarium showcases local fish, but it’s not boring. They have a freaky exhibit of live shark embryos in egg casings. Bonus: eel, starfish & urchin Keep reading Freakiest Shark Exhibit Ever At Santa Monica Aquarium 
New Englanders want to see sharks; that much is clear from the way they’ve crowded Chatham on Cape Cod in recent weeks, hoping for a glimpse of the sharks preying on the seal colony. There were enough sharks to close some beaches, but not really enough to make shark-watching successful. Few would-be shark tourists realize that New England is starting to have a thriving shark cage-diving industry, with three tour companies, one right on Nantucket. Bryce Rohrer led shark cave dives off South Africa, the shark cage dive Capitol of the World, then realized he could start Nantucket Shark Divers closer to home. Rohrer grew up fishing in the area, but “that slowly evolved into ditching the fishing rod for a camera.” He knew there was enough sealife tantalizingly close to shore to make a good trip. “Not many people know sharks out there,” he says. “It’s a very attractive spot for people. The bottom line is there’s a ton of wildlife around there, lots of whales, sharks, dolphins–all the things people care about.” This year he’s lead some free-diving tours–no cage, no airtanks–just a snorkel. He’s got a few warm, relatively shallow spots 10 to 40 miles off shore. Next year, he’ll also have a shark cage, which goes in the water behind the boat. He’ll let divers venture out of the cage at their own pace once they’re comfortable. He also has options for people like me, who can’t swim and are a little chicken; you Keep reading Shark Cage Dives–Right in New England  Yesterday we reported on how the Great White Sharks that are closing beaches on Cape Cod are also drawing shark tourists. Today another seal boat captain tells us they’re looking in the wrong spot. Captain Keith Lincoln of Monomoy Island Ferry says that people are mistakenly hanging around Chatham Lighthouse since that’s where the shark was first sighted by kayakers a eating a seal in August. “That is all due to the misleading information given by the media,” says Captain Keith. “Massachusetts Department of Fisheries page shows all the taggings being done three miles south of the lighthouse near the area where South Beach and South Monomoy Island attached in 2006.” Looking at the Fisheries map here, he’s totally right. Excellent tip, Captain Keith. (Though they do also show pictures of sharks offshore of the lighthouse.) He also warns that even if you’re in the right place, the odds of seeing a shark are pretty impossible. The tagging teams use spotters on planes and perches 35 feet out of the water.Captain Keith reports he’s “calls about seeing the sharks, which is nearly impossible to guarantee.” I think the seal tourists of Cape Cod have gotten spoiled; the tour boats can guarantee sightings because they’re dealing with the east coast’s biggest colony of gray seals, which is somewhere around 10,000. Normally wildlife watching is no sure thing. Captain Keith, a 20-year veteran of the seal tours, says the sharks (and attendant media frenzy) come every year. “I think this year Keep reading Cape Cod Shark Update: Look Further Up the Coast, Captain Says  When news got out that Chatham, MA’s, gray seal colony–the biggest on the east coast–was drawing sharks that closed beaches, a funny thing happened. Or didn’t happen. Instead of running away scared, more tourists came to this little town on Cape Cod’s elbow to see some sharks, hoping for a picture, or at least a glimpse. “It’s a big draw,” says Lisa Franz, executive director of the Chatham Chamber of Commerce. “We have traffic jams… People are still walking in today and saying ‘Where can we see them?’” Tony LaCasse, a former veteran Boston TV newsman, says years ago local TV news would’ve been filled with scared would-be swimmers. But that was before years of education that drilled home how very unlikely it is to be bitten, let alone eaten, by a great white shark in New England. (Last fatal attack: 1936) Now we get shark tourists. “It’s a long way from Jaws,” says LaCasse, where the premise was they couldn’t possibly close the beach on the Fourth of July. The sharks are coming because the water is (briefly) warm and because the seal population has grown unchecked–well, that is, until the sharks showed up. Seal populations were kept artificially low for decades–maybe centuries. Until the 1960s, Massachusetts even paid a bounty for each seal (“a nickel a nose” in the early 1900s). Now seals are making a comeback. Cape has the biggest population on the American east coast, with roughly 10,000 (no one’s done a formal count since Keep reading Sharks (& The East Coast’s Biggest Seal Colony) Draw Tourists |
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