Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/30/watch-big-shark-circling-unwit.html
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I don’t know…whether it was hungry
Clearly it was not…
Evidence: person is still person and not shark poop.
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Shark looked only vaguely interested in the person, which is 99.99% of all shark encounters.
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I suspect swimmers in the ocean have close encounters with sharks a lot more often than they think, but like this one they just swim around checking out the strange creature, and if there isn’t a camera above or you look down you never see them.
Nothing wrong with sharks, but I’d prefer swimming with orca:
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Shark attacks really are exceedingly rare and this shark had no interest in the swimmer other than maybe checking out the source of the splashing. I recall a newspaper article from the 1970’s reporting that banner towing pilots would see scenes like this every day as they flew back and forth over popular beaches.
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This person has a couple of better quality videos, but you still can’t see what kinda shark it is
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv-iC2ouixvHwFz84V8jE-w
My guess is hammerhead, maybe even a basking shark. Difficult to tell from the video.
Too difficult to see but it’s not a basking shark. Given the area and nearness to the beach, my guess would be a lemon shark but also could be a bull, tiger or nurse shark.
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There’s some oddness with the snout, which is why I was swayed by those types. Could just as easily be the water distorting it though.
Bull shark would be really scary, those are really aggressive and they do haunt shallower waters.
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I always love a chance to share one of the most impactful info graphics I have seen of any sort, but this one about shark attacks is the best and this story is a great chance to share it again. I think I saw it here first:
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holy crap, why is the guy filming chuckling??
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Good call, though I think it’s too dark to be a lemon shark. At that distance with a crappy cell phone video, I don’t think we’d even be able to see a lemon shark. Shape-wise, it looks like a bull or tiger. Then again, with that plume of silt it’s leaving behind, it has to be right on the bottom, even nosing into the sand. That would hint at a nurse shark.
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The contrast between the amount of effort and the speed of the human swimming, with all the splashing about, and the orcas, who glide effortlessly around, is striking.
I often though as a child about what it would be like to inhabit the body of different animals (soaring through the air as a condor, swimming as a dolphin. etc.) It would be so fun to be able to cut though the water like these orcas.
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Poor guy! He hoped he was about to film a shark attack, and he seemed really disappointed when the shark left.
That must be a female with a newborn and another young whale? The mother seems calm but she also seems to be careful to keep herself between the calf and the swimmer most of the time.
Another video, of swimmers getting out of the water at the approach of a few orcas:
It’s not indicated that this is a kind of shark that CAN harm a human.
I’ve spent some time fishing for sharks, and a much greater time reading about fishing for sharks.
They are careful when it comes to eating people. Sure, they can kill and eat us easily. But even though they definitely will win the fight, there’s a risk we can poke their eye out. That’s the latest chatter in scientific studies on shark attacks.
Not that I can eyeball what a shark is thinking, but I think it’s somewhat clear he either wasn’t interested or was interested and decided he wasn’t that interested in eating her. After all, any moderate amount of interest in something for a shark involves a nibble just to see. Biting stuff is one of their primary problem solving tools. Unfortunately for us a nibble often costs us an arm or a leg.
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