Swimmers were called out of the water of South Beach this week after a woman suffered injuries that may have been from a shark bite, according to officials.
If confirmed, this would be the first shark bite in Massachusetts since the death of a boogie boarder off Cape Cod in 2018, and the first on the Vineyard since the 1980s.
Edgartown first responders were called to Norton Point at 1:40 p.m. Monday after the woman sustained wounds to her lower leg while she was in the water, the town said in a statement.
No sharks or other marine animals were observed in the area or confirmed in connection with the incident. However, the lacerations were consistent with a shark bite, according to the town.
Rescuers brought the woman, who is in her late 20s, to the hospital for treatment. Her injuries were not considered life-threatening, and did not involve the loss of a limb.
After the incident, the town shut down swimming along South Beach for several hours, before reopening the beach.
The state’s top shark expert is hoping to learn more about the incident from any witnesses, responders or the victim herself.
“Normally, in these cases we try to talk to anyone involved,” said Greg Skomal, a renowned state marine biologist.
He has put out several inquiries, but hasn’t heard much back.
“We are very much interested,” he said. “It would be great if they reached out to us.”
Sharks are regularly found around the Cape and Islands, including sandbar sharks, sand tiger sharks and great whites, though great whites are more often spotted off Cape Cod than the Vineyard.
Mike Creato, the pilot who takes sightseers up in his signature red biplane out of the Katama Airfield, regularly flies over the area where the woman was swimming. The most common shark he sees are sandbar sharks, which are also known as brown sharks.
Sandbar sharks generally aren’t considered dangerous to humans, though they could bite someone if they are threatened.
“They aren’t huge,” Mr. Creato said. “If they do bite someone, it’s an accident.”
The only other bite on the Vineyard that Mr. Skomal could recall was in the late 1980s, when he was called to the hospital by a doctor for a sandbar shark bite. In that instance, the shark had been caught by an angler, and his friend grabbed the shark by the tail. The shark then whipped around and bit him in the calf.
“That does happen,” Mr. Skomal said.
White sharks typically move through Vineyard waters in the early summer and fall as they migrate to and from the Cape, where there are large colonies of seals.
Mr. Creato said it is rare for him to see great whites around the Island.
“A lot of the time we are able to see, and most of the time we don’t see anything there,” he said. “This year I saw one, for sure, great white, probably 150 feet away from the beach.”
If he does see them off the Vineyard, the sharks are two to three miles from shore at a sandy area off Wasque where there are seals.
“I think everyone has the idea that they are marauding right off shore,” he said.
There have been no documented shark bites since Arthur Medici was fatally bitten eight years ago while boogie boarding off Newcomb Hollow Beach, a stretch of sand on the Atlantic Ocean side of Wellfleet. With the growing shark population in New England, Mr. Skomal said that is evidence that bites don’t happen very often.
“That’s a testament that these animals make mistakes very rarely,” he said, implying that biting humans is not their desired prey.
Without seeing pictures of the wound, or knowing the water depth, turbidity, conditions and exact location, it’s hard for the biologist to guess what happened. Based on the information he has now, it likely was a bottom swimming shark that perhaps was bumped into by a swimmer.
“They don’t have hands and they can’t feel so they use their mouths to test,” he said.
Beach managers have shut down swimming in other parts of the Island this season.
Chilmark closed Lucy Vincent and Squibnocket beach earlier in August after a large congregation of animals was spotted off the beach. Beach superintendent Martina Mastromonaco said the town received reports of sharks, but she couldn’t tell for sure what lifeguards were seeing.
“My guards did see a lot of things out in the water swimming,” she told the Gazette earlier this month. “It could have been a bunch of dolphins.”
Though the bite from Monday could make swimmers think twice, Mr. Creato said he’s still ready to go in the water.
“I still swim,” he said. “I admit, I might think about it.”
This article appears in September 4, 2026.