Cape Cod Bay’s great white sharks reveal secrets through camera tags

Researchers are using camera tags to learn more about the behaviors and habits of great white sharks in Cape Cod Bay.

The camera tags are like GoPro cameras that the sharks wear temporarily, offering a close-up view of what they’re seeing until the camera falls off.

“You’re basically riding the back of a shark for a day or two,” said Greg Skomal, shark biologist for the state’s division of Marine Fisheries. “The cameras tell us what the sharks are doing every second of the day.”

Greg Skomal, shark biologist for Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, encounters a shark on a research trip with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy on

Each camera tag is also equipped with sensors that measure conditions such as depth, temperature, and speed so “we can look at its behavior,” he said.

Working with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, Skomal has put camera tags on white sharks in the past, but last Thursday marked the first time researchers affixed one to a white shark in Cape Cod Bay.

On Monday the researchers went out in the bay again and continued the operation, tagging six great whites in all.

Acoustic tags, which track the shark’s location, were placed on the sharks and one was given a camera tag, Skomal said.

The day after tagging the shark last week, researchers picked up the signal. The researchers are still downloading the information, but the footage appears to show the shark “cruising the bottom of Cape Cod Bay.”

Unlike the white sharks on the outer Cape that feed on seals, the sharks in Cape Cod Bay are feeding on schooling fish, squid, and striped bass, he said.

They tend to be younger and smaller than those along the outer Cape, he said. The juveniles in Cape Cod Bay typically measure less than 9 feet, he said.

And unlike the larger white sharks that hunt seals on the outer Cape, the sharks in Cape Cod Bay “tend to stay away from land,” he said.

“They’re behaving differently in Cape Cod Bay,” he said.

Emily Sweeney can be reached at emily.sweeney@globe.com. Follow her @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22.