As great white sharks have moved into Massachusetts waters, the Cape has changed to make room for them.

Nauset Beach in Orleans, Mass., part of a stretch of coastline with one of the world’s densest seasonal populations of white sharks.

 

On a cloudless afternoon in July, Nicole Sweeney was on a charter boat off the southeastern corner of Cape Cod, cruising through blue-green water as smooth as sea glass. Conditions were perfect for a dunk in the ocean, but swimming was resoundingly off the table.

That’s because if all went to plan, Sweeney would soon come face to face — or at least face to fin — with a great white shark.

“When I was a kid, sharks were not something we ever thought much about,” said Sweeney, 55, who has visited Cape Cod, Massachusetts, every summer since she was born. “Now you can’t go anywhere on the Cape without finding a coaster or a keychain or a mug with a shark fin on it.”

 

Threatening shark warning signs, like this one in the town of Chatham, are now commonplace at beach entrances on Cape Cod, Mass., July 26, 2026. Over the last several years, a resurgent seal population has turned Cape Cod into one of the world’s top seasonal hot spots for great white sharks. – Amir Hamja/The New York Times

The onslaught of great white merch is more than mere leftovers from last summer’s 50th anniversary of “Jaws.”

Over the last several years, a resurgent seal population has turned Cape Cod into one of the world’s top seasonal hot spots for great white sharks. In summer and autumn, the stretch of ocean from the northern tip of the Outer Cape down past Chatham, on the Cape’s elbow, is now the best place on Earth to see great whites swimming — and hunting — close to shore.

White sharks have been drawn back to Cape Cod by a resurgent population of seals, seen here waiting for scraps from fishermen unloading their catch at the pier in Chatham. – Amir Hamja/The New York Times

Back on land, the specter of sharks is inescapable. Beyond the shark-bite ball caps and the “Respect the Locals” shark bumper stickers, ominous shark flags and menacing warning signs, along with “Stop the Bleed” kits, have become summer fixtures on the Outer Cape’s beaches.

 

Even so, the seasonal shark surges have seemingly done little to dampen overall enthusiasm for Cape Cod, where the median single-home sale price nearly doubled from 2019 to 2025 and hotel prices can top $2,000 a night during high season.

The sharks have, however, changed people’s behavior. Demand for swimming pools has spiked. Beachgoers now keep a close eye on the shark-tracking app Sharktivity. And shark-spotting tours regularly operate within striking distance of some of the Cape’s most popular beaches.

Greg Skomal, a marine biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and New England’s leading authority on white sharks (as scientists typically call great whites), has seen the shift in beachgoers’ habits from his shark-tagging trips up and down the coastline.

Purple flags are used by the U.S. Lifesaving Association to signal the presence of dangerous marine life. On the ocean beaches of the Outer Cape, purple shark flags now fly all summer long. – Amir Hamja/The New York Times

“We observe it from the research vessel,” Skomal said. “We don’t see the same number of people in the water at great distances from shorelines.”

From a conservation perspective, the sharks’ return to these waters is a success story, the result of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which rescued t