“A handful of years ago, after we talked to South Africa, we saw they were using shark flags,” Reynolds says. It’s all part of an education program called Shark Smart. People’s reluctance to go deep may also have something to do with the purple shark flags and giant billboards signaling the presence of great whites that greet beachgoers, messaging tips imported from South Africa and Australia, among other places with a large shark presence. Without a doubt, people are staying closer to shore,” she says. She says it used to be that lifeguards had to blow their whistles multiple times a day to get bathers closer to shore due to rip tides or big currents.īut now lifeguards report it’s a rare occasion when they have to wave people in, Reynolds says. “If they go waist deep or any further, lifeguards will call them back,” says Leslie Reynolds, deputy superintendent of the Cape Cod National Seashore. The Swim for Life charity event in Provincetown, Massachusetts, that draws hundreds of participants will, for the second September in a row, take place in shallow waters of the East End shoreline rather than the traditional deepwater route across Provincetown Harbor due to concerns about sharks, whose local population peaks in late summer and early autumn.Īnd at ocean-facing beaches from Chatham to Provincetown, lifeguards keep beachgoers close to shore, especially during high tide when sharks ride the swells parallel to the beach in the hunt for seals. There are no statistics on how many people have given up boogie boarding, surfing or long distance ocean swimming because they fear encountering one of the hundreds of great white sharks hunting for seals off the Atlantic-facing beaches of Cape Cod, a popular tourist destination spot in Massachusetts.īut there is no doubt the sharks’ growing presence has changed human behavior on and near those waters, especially after 26-year-old boogie boarder Arthur Medici was killed by a great white off Wellfleet on the Outer Cape nearly four years ago. “I really enjoyed boogie boarding,” Fraser says.

“I switched from boogie boarding probably four to five years ago because you look a little too much like a seal when you sit there in the water with fins dangling,” says Fraser, a writer who formerly covered the fishing industry-and sharks-in Massachusetts. Cape Cod resident Doug Fraser realized he had made the right decision to give up boogie boarding in favor of a standup paddle board the day a great white shark swam under him and rolled over to take a closer look.įrom his standing position on the paddle board, Fraser was able to see the shark coming and the roll that exposed a dark, hollow-looking eye.

Leslie pool