If tales from old fishermen are true, Cape Cod has come a long way from when some towns offered $5 a snout for proof of the demise of seals, fish-eaters in fishing communities.

Now a protected species, the gray seal population has exploded on the Cape and Islands during the past four years. And where there are seals, there are seal predators, most famously, the great white shark. Last summer marked one of the busiest seasons for great white sightings in the region, with the first shark attack on a human in Massachusetts since 1936.