Ret Talbot's Blog
July 30, 2023
13 Years Ago Today – The Day Greg Skomal Knew White Sharks off Cape Cod’s Beaches Was the New Normal
One of the questions I asked Greg Skomal as we were writing Chasing Shadows, our new book that published earlier this month, was when did he feel he knew that sharks in shallow water off the Cape’s beaches were not … Continue reading →
July 6, 2023
The Most Important Shark Attack
This is the fifth in a series of blog entries leading up to the release of my new book, Chasing Shadows, written with shark biologist Greg Skomal. Click here to see all the blog entries in this series. When it comes to shark attacks, the string of incidents in 1916 along the coast of New Jersey looms large (read Michael Capuzzo’s … … Continue reading →
July 5, 2023
World War II and Shark-related Psychosis
This is the fourth in a series of blog entries leading up to the release of my new book, Chasing Shadows, written with shark biologist Greg Skomal. Click here to see all the blog entries in this series. The last two entries in my ten-day countdown … Continue reading →
July 4, 2023
“Something Truly Deserving of Every Ounce of Our Fear”?
This is the third in a series of blog entries leading up to the release of my new book, Chasing Shadows, written with shark biologist Greg Skomal. Click here to see all the blog entries in this series. In the … Continue reading →
July 3, 2023
The Jaws Effect
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, and it’s also a couple days into National Geographic’s SharkFest. CHASING SHADOWS, my new book written with shark biologist Greg Skomal, publishes in just nine days…so, of course, I’m thinking sharks and Jaws and … Continue reading →
July 2, 2023
Naming Sharks
In Chasing Shadows, which comes out in just 10 days, my co-author, Greg Skomal, and I talk about the practice of naming the sharks he is studying. Greg is a shark biologist, and he’s identified many sharks off the coast … Continue reading →
July 1, 2023
Countdown to CHASING SHADOWS Launch Day – Daily Blog Entries with Excerpts from the Book
Chasing Shadows is a book about the resurgence in the white shark population in the western North Atlantic seen through the eyes of shark biologist Greg Skomal, who quite unexpectedly, found himself in the middle of it all. Written with … Continue reading →
April 9, 2023
30 Years of Coastal Shark Protection in the Atlantic
This April marks the 30th anniversary of US federal protection for sharks in the Atlantic Ocean. It was a long time coming, but these regulations, in combination with the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and the 1997 ban on killing … Continue reading →
April 5, 2023
Happy Birthday, Stan!
Today is Stan Waterman’s 100th birthday! For those who don’t know, Stan Waterman is a five time Emmy winning cinematographer and a pioneering giant in the world of shark diving. We mention Stan a couple times in Chasing Shadows because … Continue reading →
February 23, 2023
Beloved Invaders – Perceptions of Non-native Species
This episode of the Beyond Data Podcast (Season 1, episode 3) was originally released in August 2018. The non-native brown trout, which the data show places a burden on imperiled native fishes, is revered in the United States, while other … Continue reading →
