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‘I’d love to see Jaws just come out of nowhere’: Video shows great white eating seal off Cape Cod

In the video, which was taken by Stephen Hrusovsky, a half-eaten seal can be seen bobbing in the water, as the camera stays fixed on the calm ocean surface.
In the video, which was taken by Stephen Hrusovsky, a half-eaten seal can be seen bobbing in the water, as the camera stays fixed on the calm ocean surface. (Mark Gartsbeyn)

Cynthia Wigren, president of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, perhaps said it best: “Cape locals and visitors are getting quite the show this season!”

Wigren, whose nonprofit group studies and tags great whites annually with state marine biologists, isn’t talking about summertime fireworks. She’s referring to a pair of recent videos taken of the apex predators as they feasted on seals off the Cape Cod coastline.

On Wednesday, the conservancy posted a video to Facebook that was sent to it by a group of boaters who witnessed a shark mid-meal near the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, an area where the sharks commonly hunt for prey. It was filmed Saturday, Wigren said.

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In the video, which was taken by Stephen Hrusovsky, a half-eaten seal can be seen bobbing in the water, as the camera stays fixed on the calm ocean surface.

Hrusovsky, who was recording with his iPhone, can be heard saying, “I’d love to see Jaws just come out of nowhere.”

Soon after, his wish is granted.

“Oh!” the people on the boat exclaim, as the shark emerges. It then sinks its teeth into the seal, producing blood.

Hrusovsky, whose parents have a house in Chatham, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that it had been a perfect day fishing for striped bass with his family and friends when they encountered the half-eaten seal not too far offshore, still alive and struggling for its life.

Aware of the presence of great whites in Cape waters, the group decided to linger just in case anyone got lucky and happened to see one.

“It was kind of gruesome. But at the same time, we kind of had to watch because we knew a shark would be close by,” said Hrusovsky, 28. “I had a feeling he was lurking below the boat and just waiting. I was hoping for the best, and sure enough it just unraveled right in front of us.”

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During the expletive-laced three-minute video, the shark can be seen circling the seal and thrashing around in the water, its dorsal fin and caudal fin — or tail fin — popping up occasionally.

At one point, things seem to calm down a bit, and the shark fades from view with its food.

“And just like that, he’s gone, man,” Hrusovsky says in the video.

Then, suddenly, the water stirs once more, as the shark rubs up against the boat, scaring its occupants.

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” someone yells. “Oh my God! He’s ripping the seal up.”

Hrusovsky, who lives and works in New York City, called the experience, which happened on his birthday weekend, “wild.”

“I’ve been fishing my whole life and I’ve never seen anything like that before,” he said. “We have all been on the water a lot, and that was such a new experience — it was like I was watching ‘Shark Week.’ ”

Hrusovsky’s video follows an earlier one taken by a drone, near Nauset Beach, on July 4, which was also shared by the conservancy on Facebook recently.

The conservancy is in the midst of its final year of a five-year population study of great whites in New England waters. Team members go out with state marine biologist Greg Skomal twice a week from mid-June through October so they can tag and record sharks that may be swimming and feeding nearby.

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During those trips, it’s rare to witness a predation, Wigren said, making the recent videos particularly exciting.

“This month alone, we’ve seen great drone footage off Nauset and a cellphone video off Monomoy,” she said in a statement. “It’s all about being in the right place at the right time.”

The conservancy, in its Facebook post, called the footage shared by Hrusovsky “awesome.”


Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.