CAPE ELIZABETH — It’s official: Oppressive heat is worse than the fear of sharks.

An 8-foot-long juvenile great white shark named Tuck was detected by a tracking device off Crescent Beach State Park in Cape Elizabeth early Friday morning. But its presence didn’t deter swimmers, who hours later happily splashed in the water as the air temperature and humidity soared.

Jim Britt, communications director with the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, holds a flag at Crescent Beach in Cape Elizabeth that is raised at Maine beaches if sharks are detected nearby. The flag was flown for the first time Friday at Crescent Beach after a great white named Tuck was detected offshore. Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press

“The water is warm and they’re showing up,” Barry Goldsmith of Portland said of sharks. “But I don’t look like a seal.”

Dozens of swimmers ignored the purple flag emblazoned with the white silhouette of a shark fluttering above the lifeguards’ perch and enjoyed a rare day when the water was refreshing rather than bone-chilling.

State officials are utilizing the shark warning flags for the first time this year to alert bathers to the presence of sharks, and a spokesman with the state Bureau of Parks and Lands said Friday was the first time it’s been used at Crescent Beach. They are advisory and do not mean people are not allowed to swim, he said. The warning Friday was in response to the tracking signal, not to any actual sightings of a shark.

The warning system was adopted this year after Maine experienced its first documented fatal shark attack last summer. Julie Dimperio Holowach, 63, died last July after a great white attacked her about 20 yards offshore near her home on Bailey Island.

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The warning flag appeared to have little effect on beachgoers Friday.

Barry Goldsmith and his wife, Sue Goldsmith, said they didn’t notice the flag until it was pointed out to them as they left the beach for the day.

“I wonder if I would have gone swimming if I saw that,” Sue Goldsmith said, concluding she probably would have.

The shark dubbed Tuck had been tagged with a tracking device off Cape Cod 10 days ago and traveled up the coasts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire before being detected by tracking equipment early Friday morning about midway between Richmond Island and Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth. That put it off Crescent Beach State Park, which was packed with people escaping Friday’s heat.

The tracking system is maintained by Ocearch to help scientists better understand the ocean.

Sue Brown of Gray said her children pointed out the warning flag at Crescent Beach after she came out of the water, but she decided the risk of an encounter with Tuck was slight.

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“I don’t think it would come in this close,” she said.

And Kim Scott, visiting Maine with her family from Kingston, New York, also downplayed concerns about a shark nearby.

“I’m a big fan of (the movie) ‘Jaws,’ ” she said. Scott said she had waded in the surf and went for a swim three times during her day at Crescent Beach.

“It’s too hot” to stay out of the water, Scott said, “and we’re all here, all day.”

Tuck’s presence should be no surprise, said James Sulikowski, a shark researcher with Arizona State University. For more than a decade, Sulikowski studied sharks for the University of New England in Biddeford and he still conducts research off the coast of Maine in conjunction with several shark institutes and the Maine Department of Conservation.

Sulikowski said great white sharks have probably always visited the Maine coast in the summer and their interest has only been piqued in recent years as the seal population rebounded after killing marine mammals was outlawed in 1972.

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Sharks have been spotted more frequently off Cape Cod as the seal population there rebounded and, to a shark, Cape Cod and southern Maine are practically in the same neighborhood.

“This is not unusual, for sure,” Solikowski said of Tuck’s visit.

“They have always been there,” he said, and the area between Cape Cod and Maine, he said, “is like a little highway back and forth” for sharks.

As the Gulf of Maine warms, Sulikowski said, the number of great whites off Maine is only likely to increase.

He said just as swimmers need to be aware of the risk of riptides and take precautions, they should also recognize that sharks are in the water and take steps to minimize interactions.

Sulikowski said those steps include avoiding swimming near seals, not swimming alone, and taking off shiny objects that might grab a shark’s attention.

“Will they reduce the chances? Yes,” he said. “Will they eliminate them? No.”


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