Orleans Stressing Safety at Nauset Beach with Shark Smart Signs

Be Shark Smart signs have been posted at Nauset Beach in Orleans to provide shark safety information for visitors.

ORLEANS – Visitors to Nauset Beach in Orleans may be noticing some new signs featuring the Cape’s most famous visitors.

The “Be Shark Smart” signs show a large great white shark and provide shark safety information which informs beachgoers not to swim near seals, stay close to shore in waist deep water, avoid swimming at dawn or dusk and to swim and surf in groups.

“The best thing we can do at the beaches is make sure people are educated about the realities of the amount of sharks off our beaches swimming in the vicinity of beachgoers,” said Nate Sears, the natural resources manager in Orleans. “This is the new reality for us on the Outer Cape and it’s going to take a little while for people to accept the fact that there’s a potential for a dangerous situation with sharks and we need to change the way we use our beaches.”

The sign also informs visitors of the new Sharktivity mobile app which is free to the public. The app allows users to view and submit shark sightings and receive beach alerts and notifications. Staff from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, Cape Cod National Seashore, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and towns throughout the Cape and South Shore provided input on the functionality of the app, which was built by Everglades Boats and Amelia Rose Designs.

“The app goes hand-in-hand with the signage, the education,” Sears said. “What we want to do is just promote that conversation.”

Sears said he hopes the app accomplishes educating the public on the research that is being done by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy to allow for visitors to make their own conscious decisions about the activities they take part in.

The app is only available on Apple products at this time, but plans are in the works for an Android app.

Sears said he hopes visitors take the time to read the signs.

“The message needs to across loud and clear that we do have sharks off these beaches,” Sears said.

Orleans is making preparations in the event of a possible shark attack.

“We will be adding EMTs so that we will have a presence on the beach during the daytime hours so if there ever was an accident that we would be able to respond to it in an appropriate amount of time,” Sears said.

Lifeguards will also be keeping beachgoers at the public beach within a safe proximity of the shoreline.

Sears said he is not as worried about the public beach because it can be managed by lifeguards during the daytime hours.

“It’s those remote sections of beaches that the surfers are going outside the surf line in the same area where the sharks are basically patrolling up and down our beaches looking for seals,” he said. “The message needs to get out to the surf community as well that they are at risk on these remote sections.”

By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter