Skip to content Skip to a section
Field note

Great white shark in 2014: Cape Cod seal-shark years · 477

[476] [read-great-white-shark-1] In 2014, the field log for Great white shark is headed “Cape Cod seal-shark years.” The figure kept beside that heading is 1975. It is a count or a date from the work, not a rank of the species’ worth. A zoo birthday card does not replace the log. CITES and satellite names made a Vulnerable shark trackable by phone.

Apex lamnid whose warm muscle, broad diet and 1975 cinema still outrun the tagging papers. Did Jaws change great-white numbers or only stories? The 1975 film increased trophy interest and beach fear. Later decline drivers are fins, bycatch and slow life history. Benchley later argued the fiction had been taken as a brief.

A mid-Pacific patch where California-tagged whites linger. Foraging on midwater squid and fish is the working hypothesis, not a seal colony. They are regional endotherms. Countercurrent heat exchangers keep muscle and stomach above ambient -- not mammalian homeothermy. Cape fur seals and elephant seals create predictable prey. Cage tourism and research boats stacked on those same reefs.

A very large female photographed at Guadalupe and later Hawaii -- a media name, not a stock assessment. Appendix II in 2004. Papers still move; the listing forces permits and data, not a zero quota. Many coastal adults make basin-scale loops (California-Cafe-Hawaii). Site fidelity to seal colonies is seasonal.

Keep 2014, “Cape Cod seal-shark years,” and 1975 together or the note on Great white shark stops being that year’s record.2014

Figures to keep

Year of the note
2014
Figure to keep
1975
Species
Great white shark
Line in the log
Cape Cod seal-shark years

Great white shark in 2021: Gansbaai sighting dips · 478Next essayAll 1000 essays1000