A Barnstable County commissioner is proposing a controversial “shark hazard mitigation strategy” after a shark attacking a seal off a Cape Cod beach Monday sent terrified swimmers and surfers scrambling to shore.

Commissioner Ron Beaty is looking to deploy baited drum lines with hooks near popular beaches in the hopes of catching great white sharks — a protocol that he says has been successfully implemented in South Africa and Australia. Large sharks found hooked but still alive would be shot, he said, and their bodies would be discarded at sea.

“From my viewpoint, based upon the sharp increase in shark-related attacks and incidents around Cape Cod in recent years, there is a clear and present danger to human life as a result of this growing problem,” Beaty said, although he didn’t cite any statistics.

A motivating factor for his proposal, he said, was Monday’s shark attack on a seal off Nauset Beach, which was crowded with people.

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Video footage posted online showed an expanding pool of blood in the water around the seal and lifeguards running along the edge of the water as beachgoers desperately yelled for two surfers to come in.

The beach was temporarily closed after the attack, as were several others in the area.

“This shark, that attack that got videotaped off Nauset, that was very close to shore and very easily could have been a small child and not a seal,” Beaty said. “It’s very easy for these sharks to mistake a person for a seal. They’re just looking for something to eat. God forbid it’s somebody’s child, and by that time, it’s too late. We can’t wait for that.”

Greg Skomal, a state Division of Marine Fisheries biologist, said he would need to know more about Beaty’s proposal, which, based on the commissioner’s seven-sentence press release, “doesn’t seem to have much to it.”

“I’m wondering what the shark hazard is,” said Skomal, who has spent more than 30 years studying sharks.

He noted that sharks feed on seals virtually every day, mostly out of human sight. The last attack on a person in Massachusetts, he said, was in 2012 on a swimmer off Truro, and the last fatal attack on a person in the Bay State was in 1936 in the waters off Mattapoisett.

“Between those years,” Skomal said, “I don’t know of any white shark attacks.”

Because certain species of sharks are protected under state and federal law, any measure like the one Beaty is proposing ultimately would have to be approved by the division. But Beaty said he’s more concerned about “getting the ball rolling” than he is the next procedural step for his proposal.

“I just threw it out there,” Beaty said. “I am going to formalize it and go before various boards of selectmen and probably make some calls to the state … If we’re not proactive, if we’re only reactive, then by that time it’s too late. If we react to a child or a person being killed or maimed for life, by then it’d be shame on us for not having at least thought of a strategy or tried to do something.”

Herald wire services contributed to this report.