Just some old background info. -Tom
Back in the Eighties, I was partying down in Point Judith with friends, and a crowd of people were talking excitedly out in the street. When we asked what was going on, they said someone had caught a white shark and it was at a dock up the street.
We went over to take a look, and by the time we got there, the shark had been completely butchered and the removed jaws were sitting on the sidewalk with a guy standing inside the bloody jaws! That was the first time I had ever seen with my own eyes anything like that, and I was able to examine it closely...the teeth were huge, and were obviously sharp enough to cut when I ran my finger lightly along the edge. Each tooth was just a bit smaller (by maybe a quarter to a third) than the triangle I could make with my thumb and forefinger from each hand held together to make a triangle.
Pretty amazing to see.
But what was equally impressive was a pectoral fin some Asian guy had finagled from the corpse...it was longer than my arm. He was sitting with it on the curb trying to saw through it with a huge knife with a round end, with no success. He would saw unsuccessfully for a minute, then using the curb next to him as a whet stone would try to put some kind of edge on it, and then would try again to saw. But that pectoral fin was enormous!
Bull shark?
I had read about the 1916 attacks, but have never read about this case. Interesting. I live hundreds of miles from the Ocean on the West coast so I don’t see it more than once a year if that.
But I do remember my late Father, a champion swimmer at high school in the 1930s, taking me swimming offshore when I was a boy. He taught me to swim well when I was very young, and we would go way out beyond the breakers and then swim about a quarter mile along the coast before coming back ashore.
I thought nothing of sharks in those days even though I spotted a few 3 foot sand sharks near shore a time or two. Then when the movie “Jaws” came out when I was 25 and everything changed. Not to mention all the Shark specials on TV since then. Now you couldn’t get to wade more than ankle deep in the Ocean.
The shark either came up Buzzards Bay or down the Cape Cod Canal. My guess is it came down the canal. That pier is in a straight line from the canal to the SW.
White sharks seem to be numerous off California. They were a protected species, but restrictions on taking them were relaxed five years ago. Apparently, sport fishermen can take them but commercial fisheries are still prohibited from doing so.
Thanks!! Still interested...if you recall we shared this interest not long ago!