INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Great White Shark Takes Flight In Australia’s Lake Macquarie

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 09:48 PST, Sep 16, 2015

An Australian man has managed to film one of Lake Macquarie’s great white sharks as the predator launched itself from the water, attempting to escape an entangling line.

Jeff Adams took the video on Monday morning, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, just three days after spotting his first great white shark ever in the waters of Lake Macquarie. Adams has been sailing the lake for 35 years, so when he spotted a buoy flashing under the surface, days after seeing a white shark, he stopped for a closer look.

Turning on his smartphone, Adams quickly realized that he was looking at another great white shark, this one measuring roughly three-meters-long. The shark had become entangled in a six-meter-long rope under the surface, which was attached to a buoy, and was attempting to free itself. As Adams watched, the great white shark suddenly resorted to drastic measures in an effort to extricate itself from the unintended trap.

“I was really concerned about the welfare of it, it was obviously stressed when it jumped out of the water trying to get the rope untangled. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing – just so extraordinary to see.”

As Adams filmed, the great white shark launched itself out of the lake, breaching the surface in an attempt to shed the line. The behavior is commonly seen in sharks when they are hunting, but less often in these sorts of circumstances. Recently, white sharks in both South Africa and Australia have been filmed breaching for no apparent reason, as the Inquisitr has previously reported, leading some to conclude that the predators were being chased by even larger sharks.

Adams’ video, which was taken off Marmong Point, quickly went viral online, as the Newcastle Herald reports, sparking a search by Department of Primary Industry officers. He asserts that the shark he witnessed on Friday was a different animal than the one he recorded, despite the fact that it was also entangled in a line. Adams estimated that shark to be much longer than the one in the video, possibly four-meters-long.

“They were definitely different sharks, the one on Friday was a monster fish. It put the wind up me when I saw it, I was shaking.”

The sightings are just the latest in Lake Macquarie, which made international headlines last year when a young great white shark was filmed swimming close to shore. The combination of that video, along with Adams’ multiple sightings, has shown that Lake Macquarie remains a healthy habitat for white sharks.

Though officials searched for the sharks, they were unable to locate either. The department has been told, however, that the great white shark in the video was able to free itself from the buoy and line, and no further sightings in Lake Macquarie have yet been reported.

[Photo by Jeff Adams/ Screenshot via the Sydney Morning Herald]

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