A shark took a bite out of a paddleboard on a Cape Cod beach Wednesday morning, which shut down the beach for a time.
A paddleboarder was in water about three feet deep and 30 yards offshore at Marconi Beach when the shark bit down at about 10 a.m., Fox25 reported. No one was injured in the attack, but the beach was shut down for several hours, then reopened around noon.
A National Park Service ranger reported the water was murky in the area of the attack and speculated the shark didn’t know what he was biting down on.
“Any sort of shark, if they wanted to take a bite, could have ripped that paddleboard. But it didn’t,” the ranger said, Fox 25 reported.
A lifeguard in the area said it was likely a young shark that bit the paddleboard, Fox reported.
After the beach reopened at noon, swimmers were encouraged to stay close to the shore. The ranger said shark sightings seem more numerous in August through October.
A shark attacked and killed a seal in the waters off Cape Cod’s Nauset beach on Monday with swimmers nearby. No humans were hurt in that incident, either, but Barnstable County Commissioner Ron Beaty pointed out that the shark could easily have scooped up a small child instead of the seal, the Boston Globe reported.
Nauset Beach was closed after the incident. A shark also was spotted from a plane in Truro, Massachusetts, which caused several beaches in the area to be closed Monday before reopening.
The last shark attack on a human in the Cape Cod area was in 2012 near Truro, and no one has been fatally attacked by a shark there since 1936.