Brian Bramson

What New Research Reveals About Cape Cod's White Sharks Cape Cod's white shark population is one of modern marine conservation's clearest success stories — the return of an apex predator after decades of near-absence, driven largely by the recovery of the gray seals it feeds on. That recovery, and how scientists first measured it, is the subject of Part One of this series, “The Sharks Are Back.” But recovery isn't the end of the story. Each summer, researchers from the Massachusetts Shark...

Inside the Recovery of White Sharks in New England Waters On a warm August morning, the beaches of Cape Cod fill with swimmers, surfers, anglers, and families eager to enjoy one of New England's great summer traditions. Lifeguards scan the surf, children chase waves across broad sandbars, and seals bob just beyond the breakers. Increasingly, however, another visitor is sharing those waters. The white shark. Forty years ago, spotting a white shark off Cape Cod was an extraordinary event....

No one had seen the steamer go down. No one ever would. Somewhere out in the dark off the New England coast, in the small hours between Saturday night and Sunday morning, the side-wheel steamer Portland and every soul aboard her had simply ceased to exist. The beach was the only witness, and the beach could testify only that it had happened — not how, not precisely when, and not, as it would turn out for the better part of a century, where.