HBO Original documentary film “After the Bite”, directed and produced by Ivy Meeropol (HBO’s “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn,” “Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter’s Story”), debuts WEDNESDAY, JULY 26 (10:00-11:30 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.
Synopsis: A 2018 fatal shark attack on a boogie boarder in the town of Wellfleet, Massachusetts rocked visitors and residents in the idyllic summer community of Cape Cod, forcing them to respond to the encroachment of apex predators. With the numbers of sharks increasing every year, “After the Bite” explores the far-reaching repercussions for this beach community when rapid changes in the natural world begin to clash with a cherished way of life.
Great white sharks have dominated headlines in recent years, as their deadly interactions with people have increased in the waters stretching from Maine to the Cape and Islands. Those charged with protecting the public have been forced to address the risk of serious injuries with stop-the-bleed kits mounted at public access beaches, warning billboards, the use of shark-tracking apps, spotter planes and new training programs and protocols for lifeguards.
“After the Bite” is a deep dive into how one coastal community is renegotiating their relationship with our rapidly changing environment. The changes are numerous: warmer waters, species interacting where they never had before, along with the rapidly increasing numbers of the shark’s favorite prey, the North Atlantic gray seal, whose population has rebounded since seals were protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
A portrait of an interconnected community of people and wildlife, “After the Bite” features a range of voices from different sides of these issues and considers the larger question of how far humans can push nature before it bites back.
Featured Participants: The lifeguards, conservationists, fishermen, journalists, paramedics, town residents, activists, and scientists who are impacted by the issues and are working to find solutions, including seal scientist Lisa Sette from the Center of Costal Studies; Dr. Greg Skomal and Meg Winton of the Atlantic White Shark Conservatory, which tags and tracks sharks off the coast of Cape Cod and estimates that 800 individual white sharks were in the waters off Cape Cod from 2015-2018; New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson; and Crocker Snow, a long-time island owner whose uninhabited island in Nantucket Sound is the largest breeding ground for seals in the western North Atlantic, among others.
Credits: HBO Documentaries presents “After the Bite”, A Reversal Films Production in association with Red 50 Inc. Directed by Ivy Meeropol; produced by Xan Parker, Ivy Meeropol; executive produced by Whitney Dow. For HBO: executive producers, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, Tina Nguyen.