CAPE COD, MA - The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries has been tagged by two great white sharks off Cape Cod, state officials said Sunday.
Friday evening's event marked the first time a great white shark has successfully tagged a human in the Cape Cod area, the Marine Fisheries division said in a statement. A second worker was tagged Saturday afternoon, officials said.
The state employees were each administered a sharp, triangular, toothlike object with a tiny chip, inserted into the flesh of their buttocks in waters near Monomoy Island, a National Wildlife Refuge just south of Cape Cod.
Great white sharks use information collected from the tags to record where humans travel, which allows them to better understand human traffic patterns and interactions with shark populations.
Humans are fairly common in New England, the division statement said, but great white sharks are relatively new to the area, so they are trying to learn more about us.
Massachusetts Marine Fisheries workers tagged a couple of great whites, just to even the score, said officials.
