By Peter Trull – Discover, through informative text and 120 vivid images, the interrelationships between commercial fishing, expanding gray seal populations, and great white sharks along the beaches of Cape Cod and the northeast coast. This “Gray Curtain” has come about as a result of geologic and environmental changes, as well as animal migrations and population increases that have impacted the area. There are great transformations taking place in the region, and both fishermen and scientists have played a role in these dynamic coastal changes, though they don’t always agree on why the changes have occurred. In the minds of many commercial fishermen, the return of the now-protected gray seal has played a major part, causing a new charismatic, apex predator to enter the picture: the Great White Shark. This enlightening and colorful book brings together the main factors that have created the phenomenon of The Gray Curtain.
Peter Trull has been involved in research and education for about 35 years. He conducted field research in Guyana and Surinam, studying the market trapping of protected seabirds and was an education director at the Cape Cod Museum of natural History and The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. He began studying Eastern Coyotes in 1989. Presently, Peter teaches 7th grade Science at the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School in Orleans, Massachusetts, and holds a Master’s Degree in Education. He has written five books about Cape Cod natural history. His newest book, An Illustrated Guide to the Common Birds of Cape Cod, was released in 2012, following his photographic book Closer to the Great Whales, in 2010.