Harpswell will fly shark warning flags at its beaches all summer, doing away with a policy that took the flags down within 24 hours of each sighting.
The town adopted the season-long flag policy nearly six years after a great white shark attack killed 63-year-old Julie Dimperio Holowach while she was swimming off Harpswell, the first fatal shark attack in Maine history. The select board made the change official last week after a string of new shark sightings shut down beaches in several midcoast towns.
With no lifeguards to track individual sharks, town officials say the old beach-by-beach system couldn’t keep up with how often great whites are actually moving through Harpswell’s waters. Some on social media have already criticized the policy change.
“There are sharks always in the waters of Harpswell, whether or not you see them,” Katie Neal, the town’s parks and recreation director, said. “For some folks, it’s common sense that there are sharks in the water, … but I would say that that’s not the case for all the visitors.”
Following the June shark sightings in Harpswell and other towns, Neal and the town’s harbormaster persuaded the select board to adopt a new policy to leave flags up for the summer starting with the first great white shark sighting. Neal aimed to ease the workload for her small department and increase awareness of sharks around Harpswell.
Residents questioned the policy on social media, suggesting that leaving the warning up all season would defeat the purpose of the warning flag, which typically reports recent sightings. But Harbormaster Darcie Couture directed residents to a 2025 study of sharks along Maine’s coast which found that sharks frequented the waters around Harpswell and other beaches.
“Waiting for the first reported sighting is an excellent way to start alerting the public that sharks have arrived for the season,” she wrote in a Facebook post that she also read out at last week’s select board meeting.
Shark attacks in Maine remain extremely rare. The 2020 attack was the first recorded in the state’s history, and only the third recorded in New England since 1936. But a rising seal population means more encounters with great whites across the northeast.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.