The world knows Martha’s Vineyard as the summer home to first families like the Clintons and Obamas and celebrity A-listers like Spike Lee and Larry David, but the Island is perhaps best known for the Hollywood blockbuster movie “Jaws.”
When it was filmed here on the Island more than a half-century ago, suddenly the Vineyard was synonymous with the great white shark. When you thought of the Vineyard, many could not help but hear the film’s horrifying two-note soundtrack: dun, dun, dun, dun.
So it will surprise most of the world to realize that there’s actually never been an unprovoked shark attack, or bite, on the Island, at least in recent memory.
That’s what Greg Skomal, senior biologist for the state Division of Marine Fisheries and a shark expert often compared to Richard Dreyfuss’ “Jaws” character Matt Hooper, said. And Skomal would know. Not only did he live on the Island for two decades to study sharks, but he now tags them with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy off the Cape to better understand the species, and he’s seen every major shark bite in New England in recent years. For the Island, he said he’s only ever heard of one shark bite, one that was provoked, he said, after a fisherman reeled in a sandbar, or brown, shark at East Beach in the late ’80s or early ’90s. He said he’d have to consult his journals for the exact date.
But that all changed this week, when news that a female in her late 20s was pulled from the water at Norton Point, a part of the south shore in Edgartown that allows oversand vehicle access and is directly east of South Beach, came out over the Martha’s Vineyard Public Safety radio. First responders were “reporting possible shark bites” at 1:49 pm, and a press release from the town came out around 3:30 pm that said the wounds were “considered consistent with a potential shark bite,” but that all remains unconfirmed, especially because no shark or other marine animal was seen in connection to the incident. Even plane flyovers didn’t spot anything, though pilots told The Times that the water was murky; Norton Point also typically has a steep drop-off right off the shore, and the water is often relatively unclear for swimmers.
It would be a first for the Island, if Skomal is able to confirm through analysis of the wound and speaking to the victim that this was a shark bite. It remains unclear whether or not Skomal will do an investigation.
Now, this isn’t the lead-up to the Fourth of July but for Labor Day, and Amity Mayor Larry Vaughn was onto something when, in an attempt to keep the beaches open, he said to Chief Brody, “Martin, it’s all psychological. You yell ‘Barracuda,’ everybody says, ‘Huh? What?’ You yell ‘Shark,’ we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”
Fear is psychological, especially around sharks; people fear what they can’t see and don’t understand. Skomal told The Times that on his list of suspects, based on his knowledge about marine life around the Island, is a sandbar shark, which is pretty common here, and a sand tiger shark, which is rarer, but one was recently caught by some anglers off Wasque. (He didn’t mention white sharks, which he studies off the Cape and are mostly seen around the Island only as they make their way up there.) Both species are mostly harmless, Skomal said, and are known to be implicated in a “nip” on people only when swimmers are inadvertently in their space. In fact, in Massachusetts, there have been only six unprovoked shark attacks in Massachusetts since 1837, according to the International Shark Attack File, a database collected by the University of Florida.
Swimmers should be wary of their surroundings when they enter the water — not just for marine life but for rip currents and other forces of nature that make recreational activities dangerous. Even Wendy Benchley, ocean and shark conservationist and the wife of late “Jaws” author Peter Benchley, is careful when she swims. But the ocean is home to sharks, and she’s seen the resurgence of apex predators in East Coast waters over the past few decades as a win and a sign that the ocean is slightly healthier.
The chances that a person is attacked by a shark is 1 in 11.5 million, according to the International Shark Attack File. You are way, way more likely to be hit by a car or attacked by a dog. This incident, which remains unconfirmed as a shark bite, isn’t a reason to incite panic, only caution. And it is definitely not a reason to fear sharks, which don’t have humans in their diet and attack only when confused or scared. It’s true they can mistake a person for a seal or fish, but that is extremely rare. The truth of this moment, as we assess whether a woman was indeed bitten by a shark and if so what kind, is that we should not forget the much smaller predator that poses a clear and present danger to the Island’s public health. It is hard to imagine a blockbuster movie about parasitic arachnids, or ticks. But those tiny monsters are indeed the predators we need to focus on. So let’s not panic about sharks, and let’s ready ourselves for the more complex challenge of eradicating ticks. Maybe there is a new soundtrack that needs to carry the same tension as a timer on a bomb: tick, tick, tick, tick.
