Want to see great white sharks? Consider Cape Cod.

We haven’t even set foot off the dock before our spotter sees a white shark. “Eleven o’clock, two boat lengths,” says Paul Garganigo, one of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s (AWSC) private charter captains.

The shark emerges from the shallows like a mirage. We track three more nine- to 12-foot great whites—including the hilariously named Major Bro Dude—during our three-hour AWSC tour around Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Each flash of dorsal fin and white underbelly elicits a thrill.

As the only known white shark aggregation site in the North Atlantic and one of the world’s densest seasonal concentrations of adult white sharks, the waters surrounding Cape Cod have become a hot spot for these apex predators from May to October. As Cape Cod’s shark population reaches a record high, the toothy visitors have become an unlikely source of pride—and ecotourism. Chatham, a coastal town 30 nautical miles from where the filming of 1975’s Jaws sparked a very different kind of shark fever, now sees white sharks as a new normal. It helps that most locals know that the risk of a shark attack is low. The last incident around Cape Cod was in 2018 (the first one in over 80 years).

“To be honest, I was a little nervous at first,” says Gary Thulander, managing director of Chatham Bars Inn and president of the Chatham Chamber of Commerce. “I run a hotel, and all of a sudden people are talking about white sharks. I’m like, God, is that going to affect us? But it’s the opposite. There’s more interest than ever.”

Here’s how travelers can come face to face with these often misunderstood fish.

A conservation success story

More than a dozen operators—including Blue Water Entertainment, Outermost Harbor Marine, and AWSC, a nonprofit that supports white shark research and conservation—bring hundreds of curious tourists, fin fanatics, and even the occasional bachelorette party out to Shark Alley. That’s the nickname for a stretch of ocean along Cape Cod’s Nauset Beach, Chatham, and Monomoy Island, where boat passengers often glimpse the enigmatic animal. 

According to Kristen Smith, AWSC community engagement manager, COVID-19 marked a surge in boat tours. “We did 12 weeks straight of educational programming on Facebook when the world shut down, and our social following doubled,” she says. Smith says it’s not unusual for charter guests to look out for sharks they’ve seen on National Geographic’s SharkFest or Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. Salty, a photogenic 12-foot male, is a crowd favorite. Most requests are in vain; the great whites—named by the research team and donors—are constantly on the move.

(Learn why great whites are still a mystery to us.)

While Cape Cod’s great white tourism industry seemingly boomed overnight, bringing back the sharks themselves was a longer process. Greg Skomal, a senior scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, says he didn’t encounter a great white near Cape Cod until 2004. According to Skomal, the sea creatures moved elsewhere for fatty prey once commercial fishers wiped out the region’s gray seal population in the early 1960s. After the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 made it safe for the seals to return, conservationists were able to establish stable pupping colonies on the Cape by the early 1990s.

“We believe that the appearance of white sharks over the last 15 to 20 years is in direct response to the number of seals along the shoreline,” says Skomal. “It amounts to a new restaurant—or maybe a favorite restaurant reopening.”

Simultaneously, the Atlantic white shark population—from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada—is exhibiting healthy growth thanks to years of protection. The U.S. government designated them as a prohibited species in 1997, and Massachusetts followed suit in 2005. According to one recent study, about 800 white sharks visited the waters surrounding Cape Cod from 2015 to 2018. In comparison, a similar white shark estimate for California’s central coast is 300.

A new kind of white shark tourism

Unlike in other white shark aggregation sites around the world, such as in South Africa and South Australia, cage diving with great whites in Massachusetts is illegal. Charters are also prohibited from intentionally baiting or dumping chum for white sharks within state waters. Instead, operators take a hands-off approach, using the Cape’s pale sandy bottom to view the dark contrast of the shark from the surface. 

(Dive through French Polynesia’s shark alley.)

Jaime David, a communications consultant from Maplewood, New Jersey, who has chartered a private tour with AWSC for the past two years, says she favors this natural method.

“On television or in the movies, white sharks are always shown in hunting mode,” she says. “It was incredible to see this huge predator just doing his thing, being—for lack of a better word—boring.”

Due to demand and cost, AWSC has recently added more tour options, including group expeditions with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation group and the popular Shark Receiver Tour in collaboration with Chatham Bars Inn. During the one-hour cruise through Chatham Harbor, guests help their AWSC naturalist guide check a receiver buoy for recent white shark detections while also searching for seals and other wildlife.

“It’s very common for tour groups to claim to be doing some kind of science, but it’s rare to have them working hand-in-hand with reputable scientists who are actively publishing their work,” says Nick Whitney, senior scientist for the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

(Here’s what kids can learn from sharks.)

In addition, AWSC private white shark charters allow guests to check shark tags with a hydrophone, shoot video with an underwater GoPro, and record observations for the research team. They also report shark sightings to the Sharktivity App, which works to raise public awareness of white sharks and keep beaches safer.