Spearfishermen have spotted what looks like a great white shark off Orange Beach, Alabama.
The toothy visitor appeared June 1, while Paul Decuir and his friend David Murphy were participating in the Flora-Bama Fishing Rodeo and hunting grouper and red snapper on an artificial tire reef.
Paul said he was focused on snapper when the shark swam toward the duo. They decided to cut the dive short and head back to the surface.
“You can’t see it in the video but this guy had some big teeth!” Paul said, estimating the shark to be about 10-feet long.
The popular Fishing Rodeo ran May 31 to June 2 and supports Operation ReConnect which provides combat veterans with well-deserved family vacations.
This is not the first shark to have been spotted in the area.
A great white shark was hooked near the Alabama state line February 25.
Jeremy Utter, a member of the True Blue fishing team, tossed his bonito bait off the Navarre Beach Fishing Pier, Navarre, Fla. and hooked what he thought was a mako shark.
After an hour and half, Utter and crew waded into the water and realized that had reeled in a white shark.
The group tagged the shark as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Apex Predator Program.
A data identification tag was placed on the 10-foot-long shark with data on the date of the catch and, if the shark is ever caught again, the tag can be cross-referenced.
The estimated 700-pound shark was pushed back through the surf, eventually swimming into deeper water.
On May 29, a shark was filmed swimming underneath a swimmer off Panama City Beach, Florida.
The large number of shark encounters is puzzling, but this could be attributed to changing weather patterns, the increasing mainstream use of cameras and instant information sharing, as well as effective and increasing conservation efforts for some species.
