Sharks could indeed visit RI - maybe

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - Sharks? In Rhode Island? Really?

They've shown up way too close for comfort off Cape Cod, and it's just a short swim for the predators -- and the creatures they feed on -- to visit Rhode Island. So why not?

A photo taken off Nauset Beach on the Cape this past week is a chilling image straight out of "Jaws" -- a man in a kayak looking over his shoulder, at a dorsal fin of a great white shark just ten feet away.

Officials at the Department of Environmental Management said we could plausibly see a scene like that one of these days in Rhode Island waters. Great white sharks have been found in commercial fishing gear in state waters in the past, they said.

Deputy Chief Mark Gibson of the Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife agrees, it'd be very rare and unusual for sharks to show up at a Rhode Island beach. But he wouldn't rule it out completely.

Dozens of seals have been attracted to the cooler waters of the Cape in the past several weeks. The sharks have followed them.

Save the Bay's Adam Kovarsky figured the idea of sharks traveling up into Narragansett Bay is a tad more far-fetched. The bay isn't quite deep enough for them: "The average depth of the bay is only about twenty-five feet," he said. "Large, predatory sharks need much more habitat depth and space to be able to hunt and find their foods."

Seals aren't quite mobbing the coasts of Rhode Island's beaches either, he said; our waters are still too warm. The Cape is just right for them.

Down by Matunuck and further south, beaches facing the Atlantic might be more likely to see sharks every once in a while, Kovarsky added.