Great White Shark Devours Whale Carcass, Circles Boat Off New York Coast
A group of fishermen off the coast of New York managed to film a great white shark recently, after encountering the predator while it set about devouring the carcass of an unfortunate whale.
Michael Maiale, a Long Island fisherman, was boating with several other anglers roughly 45 miles south of Long Beach, when the group encountered the white shark, according to the Daily Mail. Spotting the dead whale in the distance, the crew motored toward it to investigate. Upon arriving, they spotted the white shark circling the carcass, and immediately backed away.
In video of the incident captured by one of the fishermen, a man can be heard swearing in astonishment as the shark is sighted. After the group regains its composure, they employ a GoPro to capture underwater footage of the shark as it circles and investigates their boat, diverting its attention from the whale. At one point, the great white even approaches the boat’s motor, giving the anglers a chance to get an extreme close-up of the fish, though it stops short of biting into the propeller. In the past, sharks have been known to investigate props with their teeth, likely confused by the slight electrical discharge generated by submerged metal.
UPDATE: 1st white shark spotted off Cape Cod in 2015 y’day was 15 foot female, and new to the catalogue. @MA_Sharks. pic.twitter.com/XD9bBd3xtb
— Atlantic White Shark (@A_WhiteShark) June 23, 2015
A number of white sharks are currently migrating in the direction of Cape Cod, one of the northern Atlantic’s hotspots for the species and a premier feeding destination for great whites in recent years. Drawn to the area by a vibrant seal population, the sharks are the focus of an ongoing population study by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, which is entering its second year.
.@ChessieShark takes a swim off the #Virginia coast http://t.co/3iNxKmyxwF @ChipHHI @SCDNR @ChrisOCEARCH pic.twitter.com/zBdU4tinDQ
— OCEARCH (@OCEARCH) June 20, 2015
Some of the sharks migrating in this direction have been tagged and tracked by groups like Ocearch, a non-profit that allows the public to follow sharks that have been equipped with satellite transmitters. The New York Post suggested that the shark in Maiale’s video could possibly be one of Ocearch’s animals, Chessie, which was detected on Tuesday just off the Jersey Shore. Though Chessie is a massive shark that has been compared in size to a great white, this assertion is impossible, as the animal in the video is a white shark. As the Inquisitr has previously reported, Chessie is a tiger shark, a member of a species that is distinctly different from great whites.
[Image: Michael Maiale via the Daily Mail]
