Dead Porpoise with Great White Shark Bite Found on Great Cranberry
*Please know that a photo of the dead porpoise is within this story.
by Charles Eichacker/BDN
A dead porpoise that washed up on Great Cranberry Island this week had what appeared to be a bite taken out of it by a white shark, according to officials at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy.
When the porpoise was found on a local beach, it had a large, clean chunk of its midsection ripped out, according to photos taken by Jessica Sanborn and Patrick Allen. The new cavity stretched almost a third of the length of its body.
Amanda Bracy, a member of the Cranberry Isles Select Board, shared photos of the porpoise on an app for reporting shark sightings called Sharktivity that’s run by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. An official with the group said that it was “definitely a white shark bite” and estimated the shark was 14 to 16 feet long, according to messages that Bracy shared with the BDN.
The Cranberry Isles are about 1.5 miles offshore of the southeastern corner of Mount Desert Island.
The sighting is now logged for July 1 on the Sharktivity app. Bracy also shared the photos on a Facebook page for Cranberry Isles residents and urged people swimming or wading in the ocean to keep an eye out and be alert.
It’s not the only recent sign of sharks off Maine’s coast. Less than a week earlier, on June 27, a dead grey seal with a large bite mark was spotted near Cape Neddick in southern Maine, according to Sharktivity. It’s also attributed to a white shark.
When sharing the photos on Facebook, Bracy alluded to the killing of a swimmer off Harpswell by a white shark in 2020, which brought a new era of caution and research into the presence of the dangerous sea creatures off Maine’s coast.
“Maine found out the hard way [a] few year[s] ago we also can have fatal attacks in shallow water,” Bracy said.
This story appears through a media partnership with the Bangor Daily News.
Correction: This original article had a typo in it where it said 15 miles rather than 1.5 miles. I am so sorry we didn’t catch that, but so grateful for those who did! Thank you!
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Is it not an error to say that the Cranberry Isles are 15 miles off MDI? More like 1.5, I would say, from Bracy's Cove.
SUP paddlers beware! Based upon long experience on the West Coast sharks sometimes mistake very the very similar surf boards for prey. They have been radio tracking a number of great white sharks off the Maine for several years. Sixty individual great whites have been tracked since 2020. I'm not saying that using an SUP is inviting a shark attack but those using them should do some research and identify where the high risk behaviors are as well as what sort of ocean areas are most prone to having great white sharks.