Last summer, a great white shark trapped in a lagoon on Naushon Island off Woods Hole officially confirmed that the awe- and nightmare-inspiring fish had returned to Massachusetts waters.  But while Naushon Island's shark may have caught the media's attention, it was only one of many great white sharks spotted off of Chatham's Lighthouse Beach last Labor Day weekend.

John Chisholm of the Massachusetts Shark Research Project had a rapt audience as he presented a slideshow and discussed his work studying and tagging great white sharks in a talk last Friday night hosted by the Wareham Land Trust.

Although his research primarily focused on basking sharks, which are larger than great white sharks and have humongous mouths but use it to filter feed marine invertebrates not chomp on flesh, Chisholm and his team sprung into action when the great whites were reported off of Massachusetts.  His work hasn't been the same since. They spent the holiday weekend confirming reports of great whites, then attempted to attach $4,000 tags that communicated with satellites to record the sharks' depth, position (through measuring the light in the water) and the surrounding water temperature every 30 seconds.

The scientists successfully tagged five great whites, and so far have recovered four of the tags, revealing that great white sharks are here, and they're likely to stay.

Chisholm said, however, that contrary to popular belief - and Hollywood's portrayal of great white sharks as the rare, terrorizing visitor of Massachusetts' cold waters - the fish have historically been found off the Massachusetts coast.  In fact, the largest great white shark recorded was caught off Prince Edward Island!

But fishing and hunting wiped out not only the migrating sharks but, more importantly, their favorite prey: the gray seal. 

With the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, however, the large pinniped's numbers began to rebound.  A large colony that frequents the sandbars and rocks between Lighthouse Beach and the Monomoy Island has proven quite an attraction for the sharks.

And learning about the sharks was quite an attraction for the Wareham crowd.  The Old Methodist Meeting Hall was at capacity with people standing and seated in the benches along the walls.

Said six-year-old shark enthusiast Tyler Brown to the crowd.  "This was the most bestest night here that I ever had!"