Featured Image Credit: Justin Gilligan
By Alice Morris
Spectators in Port Stephens, Australia were treated to an incredible show in late April as schools of grey nurse sharks gathered in Fingal Bay to hunt running mullet.
Damian Hurley captured jaw-dropping drone footage of the sharks, which he uploaded to YouTube.
Authorities had to shut down local beaches to swimming, but that didn’t stop crowds from gathering on the shoreline to get a glimpse of the feeding frenzy happening just meters offshore.
The Department of Primary Industries has been patrolling the bay daily for sharks. On April 24th, they reported seeing five grey nurse sharks measuring between 1.8 and 2.2 meters long.
“If a shark is spotted we launch a jet ski to do a search of the area to determine if it is safe to open the beach,” said Phil Rock, a Port Stephens lifeguard supervisor.
Tony Carrozzi, a regular visitor to the Fingal Bay area, was at the beach with his kids to watch the mullet schools when they noticed the nurse sharks.
“The mullet were there all day, and so were the sharks,” he said. “Late afternoon, they [the sharks] got really close to the beach. I don’t know how many there were but at times you could see them swimming in pairs.”
Several other sharks were spotted in the Port Stephens area last month.
Early in April, a man was attacked by an unknown species of shark at One Mile Beach. The 46-year-old suffered minor injuries to his left foot and calf. He was taken to John Hunter Hospital where he was reported to be in stable condition.
Several other attacks have occurred recently in Western Australia including a fatal attack off Esperance in mid-April.