“It hurts because you know it’s inevitable,” Marc Angelillo, a surfer and surf equipment salesman based in Orleans, a town in the Cape’s elbow, said of another attack. “We don’t have things in place. It’s just a matter of time, again.”

It is rare for sharks to attack humans. There were 66 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks in 2018, four of which were fatal, according to the International Shark Attack File by the University of Florida. Nearly half of those attacks occurred in the United States, and nearly a quarter of them in Florida.

But those statistics have not reduced the agitation on Cape Cod, where the saga that has unfolded has enough characters and subplots to fill out a “Jaws” reboot. There are the cautious town officials, wary of taking any measures to deter an attack that might give beachgoers a false sense of security and expose their towns to liability. There is the outspoken county commissioner, who has no formal role in managing beaches or wildlife but has fervently argued for killing sharks and seals.

Marine biologists and conservationists have been providing critical information to the towns, though some frustrated citizens deride them as “shark whisperers” who care more about animals than humans. Tourists have been dutifully going into the water no further than waist deep, as they have been advised, and exiting the water when a shark has been spotted, as has happened nearly once a day on a Cape beach this month.