Swimming at Long Point Wildlife Refuge in West Tisbury was halted for a couple of hours Saturday due to a shark sighting. 

The sighting was around 9 a.m., according to The Trustees of Reservations, which manages the refuge, and swimming was restricted for two hours. A fin was spotted among seals off the beach. 

A Trustees spokesperson said the nonprofit wasn’t sure what kind of shark was spotted, but swimming resumed shortly after 11 a.m. 

Though they are more frequently seen from the shores of Nantucket and Cape Cod, several shark species are known to swim in the area. 

In the last few days, there were more than a dozen shark sightings and acoustic detections around the Lower and Outer Cape reported in the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s Sharktivity app.  

There have only been two reports of sharks around the Vineyard this summer in the app – one based on a dead seal with shark bites in it in Aquinnah and another based on a dead whale in Edgartown that bites in it. 

In 2022, a porbeagle shark was spotted in Vineyard Haven harbor, drawing a crowd of onlookers, and South Beach was closed to swimming several times after three separate sightings.