Shark Week Starts Early on Martha’s Vineyard

Show me your teeth. Photo: Stephen Frink/Corbis.

Nothing says “terror” like great white sharks and tourists. Especially when they’re at the beach together. And this week at beaches near Martha’s Vineyard, where the film Jaws was filmed, and Cape Cod the visitors must be able to practically hear the dun-dun-dun of the theme music and the tight-lipped surliness of Cap’n Quint’s ghost floating through the air of the otherwise quaint New England area.

Great whites hit the Vineyard and surrounds each summer to eat, but, according to Discovery News, “a particularly large gray seal population” put out an all-you-can-eat sign at Monomoy Beach, a spit off of the Cape. According to the article:

“Gray seals have a lot of blubber and meat, so they are a high efficiency preferred menu item of great white sharks,” New England Aquarium spokesperson Tony LaCasse told Discovery News. “Somehow the word is out in the great white world that this is the place to be…Humans are not on their menu because we are a completely inefficient meal, since great white sharks are looking for maximum calories per kill.”

Oh. Phew. I feel much safer now. And I’m sure the tourists do, too. Though if they go in the water, they’ll probably want to bring a harpoon. And, uh, a bigger boat.

Shark Week starts on Discovery Channel on July 31! Get a sneak peak of the action with these videos.
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