Shark sightings: reason to smile? (@ChathamShark/Facebook)

 
BOSTON — Maybe you've seen the photo or video: a kayaker just 100 feet off the shore of Orleans, Mass. … followed by a fin. And yet the recent shark sighting appears to be triggering more excitement than fear. We asked some experts to explain the phenomenon.
 
The business perspective
 
Paul Pronovost, editor-in-chief of The Cape Cod Times, said the tourism industry was doing its best to capitalize on the interest.

"A lot of merchants have T-shirts and hats and books and little souvenirs — all shark-related because that's what people are coming in and looking for," he said. "It's been fascinating, people coming down to the shorelines, some even brave enough to put their toe in the water, some putting even more than their toes in the water, and really being into this phenomenon — it's created quite a buzz on the Cape."
 
He didn't see any unusual rise in Cape tourism due to the fascination with sharks but he did think vacationers already there were heading to beaches where sightings have occurred.
 
The science perspective
 
While the shark sightings are fascinating to beach bums, they're even more exciting for marine scientists. Technology like acoustic and satellite tags are helping scientists track sharks and better understand the animals' behavior.
 
"Historically, all we really knew about white sharks was based on sightings," said John Mandelman, a researcher at the New England Aquarium. "But now with this new technology we're starting to learn a lot more about where these sharks are going … and that's very exciting, because [for] the Atlantic there's been an absence of information on white sharks, whereas other areas around the world have been able to gain a lot of information about their population."
 
Does climate change have anything to do with sharks swimming close to our shore?
 
"Theoretically, climate change will have an effect on various levels, not just on the sharks … I think in this case, though, sharks are still coming up here based on water temperature," Mandelman said. "I don't think anything is going to happen in a 4- or 5-year period that could be attributable to climate change."
 
Marine scientists think the warmer water temperature is why we have more seals appearing on our beaches and it's those seals … not kayakers … that are attracting the hungry sharks looking for their next meal.
 
The shark's perspective
 
We've heard what the experts say. But what does the shark think? What drove him to pursue that particular kayak? Well, the shark — and June's Massachusetts celebrity animal, the black bear — has taken to social media to explain what he's all about ... without the intermediaries. Here's a rundown.
 

BOSTON — In some neighborhoods, the stray cat population is out of control. Often these animals are killed — part of a debate about how to best handle the problem. On Monday, WGBH News went to the backyards of Dorchester, where volunteers trapped several feral felines. Now we go behind the doors of a free clinic that's making a difference.

BOSTON — If you’ve ever been woken up by the sound of a screeching cat, then you probably have a stray in your neighborhood. Male cats who aren’t neutered often get into fights, and females who aren’t spayed can birth litter after litter of kittens who then struggle to survive. But some dedicated cat lovers are trying to change the fate of homeless cats.

Caroline Woodard is known in the animal rescue world as a “trapper.” She and fellow-trapper Jamie Wilkins are on a mission to help reduce the population of unwanted cats in Boston, in a humane way. They are part of a national movement called trap-neuter-release, or TNR. Volunteers catch the felines and bring them to a clinic, where the cats are spayed/neutered, vaccinated and then returned to the streets.
 
On a recent cat roundup, I watched as Woodard set out a can of salmon as bait and then hid with Wilkins behind a nearby car on Howe Street. The bait worked quickly: The cats seemed to be coming out of nowhere. A gray one had a collar, but Wilkins said that didn’t mean it has a home.
 
“Sometimes we find full-grown cats with collars that were put on them when they were kittens, and they’ve been abandoned since, and they’ve grown out of the collar,” said Wilkins. “It’s strangling them.”

The volunteers rig up a special trap for strays. (Ibby Caputo/WGBH)

Wilkins and Woodard use a trap that you’d imagine in a Road Runner cartoon: a cage that’s propped up with a wooden stick connected to a 30-foot-long piece of string. When they pull the string, the stick is released and the cage crashes down, trapping a bewildered cat. The cage is covered with a white sheet to keep the cat calm.
 
To trap a cat
 
To trap a cat, you need skill, patience … and a strategy. So each cage was labeled with the exact location of where the cat was caught so volunteers know where to return the cat after surgery. “You never want to release a cat to where it's not from,” said Woodard. 

That’s because even a stray cat lives somewhere on the streets. Returning it to a strange place would be giving the cat a death sentence.
 
“They just basically are so disoriented when you release them anyway, and they know they are home by their smell, and when they’ve lost that, they can cross streets, and the cars drive fast,” Woodard explained.
 
Cat heroes
 
Woodard and Wilkins belong to an unofficial and somewhat underground community of cat heroes — individuals dedicated to easing the suffering of homeless cats. As trappers, they’re on the front line against feline overpopulation. Like detectives, these volunteers rely on tips from informants, who lead them to the cat colonies.
 
Informants like Milta. Milta is what’s known as a “feeder,” someone who feeds cat colonies so they don’t starve. She didn’t want her last name to be used because she said her boyfriend didn’t know the extent of her dedication to cats. (Though it would be hard not to notice: Milta said she had eight rescued cats living in her home.)

Every day she drives across Dorchester and puts out food for the strays. The trunk of her SUV looked like she made a trip to Costco — it was packed with cat food. If anyone knows where there are feral cats, it’s Milta.
 
“He’s a male, and he’ll get those girls pregnant over there,” Milta said about a black cat she recently encountered, urging the trappers to find him on Howard Street.
 
On the trail
 
With Milta leading the way, we entered a "Bourne Supremacy" movie: a four-car caravan cat chase with two trappers, one feeder and one reporter. I followed Milta to the parking lot of a liquor store, crept with Woodard between houses and waited with the cars running while Milta and Woodard caged some friendly strays on the sidewalk.
 
Then Milta led us to another backyard littered with tires, wooden planks and broken glass. She put down a plate of food and five, maybe six cats surrounded her immediately. They knew her: She is the hand that feeds them.
 
But Milta’s generosity is not always appreciated. Earlier in the morning, she was confronted by a woman walking her dog, who complained that the cat food attracted raccoons.
 
“She’s just not feeding the cat,” said the woman. “It’s like a little zoo right here.”
 
Wilkins said this sort of interaction is not unusual. "Sometimes we encounter people in the neighborhood who don’t want us feeding them,” she said. “We have to feed them to be able to trap them because we have to know when they are going to show up, and they just don’t want us doing any of that, because they think it's encouraging the population. But we’re really trying to stop them from reproducing and suffering.”
 
By late morning, four scared, silent cats sat in metal cages in Woodard’s car. Next she would take them to a friend's house, who would keep them overnight in the garage. And then early the next morning, they’d go to a clinic to be fixed. 

Coming Tuesday: WGBH News goes to the next stage of the cat roundup: the clinic.

1. All species must be caught legally, preferably with a hook and line. Exceptions will be made for interesting techniques, such as spearing or archery. No nets or traps allowed.

2. We must eat the first legal example of the fish we catch.

3. Although we can catch the fish individually, eating the fish must be done as a team. That's why God invented freezer bags!

4. Guest anglers may be deputized to join the quest at anytime.

5. We must catch the fish in one year, Feb 7, 2011-Feb 7, 2012.

You’ll know the cusk is done when it’s tender and looks terrible. But don’t be deceived, this is going to be great! Serve hot, and eat it by dipping it in hot melted butter and garlic. If you’ve done it right it will taste somewhat like lobster, if you’ve done it wrong, it will still taste somewhat like lobster. If you can boil water you can’t mess this up!
 

 
BOSTON — State lawmakers are weighing a bill that would make it illegal for a pet owners to leave their dogs tied up outside for more than 8 hours at a time, no matter whether the animal is tied to a tree, a pole or a doghouse. The bill also bans dogs from being left outside overnight.
 
Kara Holmquist, director of advocacy at the MSPCA, said the bill is necessary not only to protect dogs but to protect the public.
 
"Dogs who are tethered, according to the CDC, are 2.8 times more likely to bite," she said. "They’re territorial, they can’t escape when they feel threatened, they can be harmed by other animals, by people … so it really has implications beyond just the health and welfare of that individual animal."
 
Penalties would range from $100 for the first offense to up to $300 and the potential loss of the dog for the third offense.
 
> > MSPCA: Current legislation