BOSTON — A massive shark washed up on a Cape Cod beach this week, as researchers try to figure out what led to the shark getting stranded.

It has already been a very busy year for basking sharks in Cape Cod Bay, and some ultimately wash up dead on beaches for a variety of reasons.

Earlier this week, shark researchers responded to Eastham’s Kingsbury Beach for a 24-foot female basking shark that stranded.

“This basking shark may look like it’s smiling but sadly, it is not,” shark researcher John Chisholm wrote. “This poor individual stranded on a beach along Cape Cod Bay. There are a lot of baskos around this year and unfortunately some strand.

“Unlike marine mammals which can breathe out of water, once sharks are out of the water they’re in a race against time and tide,” he added. “Som

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