Watch Chunky Great White Shark Curiously Mingles with Open-Ocean Swimmer
If the recent onslaught of shark on swimmer and surfer footage has taught us anything, it’s that perhaps great whites are more curious than previously thought.
Like this one below, which comes from our friend Carlos Gauna (aka The Malibu Artist), and shows a large juvenile great white as it mingles with a swimmer, not in the shallows as we’ve grown accustom to seeing, but pretty far out to sea.
No inquisitory nibbles; no aggression; just…curiosity.
As Gauna captioned:
“Swimming is a popular activity near the beach. Sometimes I do see swimmers beyond the break. And sometimes there are sharks nearby. This is a larger juvenile.”
As we learned with CSULB’s Shark Lab and they’re recent study, which employed drones to examine shark activity at certain beaches, sharks were near surfers 97% of the time. But, here’s the catch – there were no attacks.
“I think people will be shocked by these findings — we never expected to see so many encounters every day with no incidents,” said Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab. “We’re also using drones to examine how white sharks behave when they are near people and how they may tell the difference between surfers and swimmers.”
Folks in the comments on the clip above agreed; they see sharks often, but although they may show some signs of curiosity, it’s not a threatening vibe:
“I swim regularly around 200 yards off shore in a group but we often get separated and I do have these videos in mind and can freak me out at times but I’ve learned these sharks aren’t interested in me. This morning I went to the beach to swim and it was totally empty so I listened to my gut and decided not to go in. I know without a doubt there have been instances where I was being watched or have peaked the interest of a shark.”
“Why didn’t the shark attempt to attack this swimmer ?”
“Gee I dunno. Perhaps because that’s not what sharks do??? Maybe? Possibly?”
“Noted: if you see a drone, get outta the water.”
Perhaps the prevalent fear surrounding sharks, and their frequent sightings amongst surfers and swimmers, is a bit of an exaggeration.
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