A huge great white shark has been spotted swimming around the carcass of a dead whale, while threatening to bite a fishing boat just off Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
The unbelievable scenes were caught on camera by Matty Riley and his friend Ken Roth when they were lobstering in the Cape Cod Bay area on Tuesday morning.
Thought to be around 20-feet long in size, the creature was filmed circling around the giant humpback when it seemed to become threatened by Riley and Roth, prompting it to feign taking a bite out of their boat.
How amazing is that?!
The shark can then be seen bumping his nose against the fishermen’s boat and opening its jaws to reveal its jagged teeth, before turning its back and swimming back towards the carcass, which has been partially chewed up.
A man can be heard yelling, ‘he’s coming right up to the boat,’ which we can only imagine will have been a truly terrifying experience.
Sharing the incredible video on Instagram, Riley said:
The most epic thing I’ve ever witnessed on the water.
Great white sharks up to 20 ft in length feeding on a dead whale in Cape Cod bay.
Riley’s Instagram states he’s a US Coast Guard master captain and commercial fisherman out of Hingham, Massachusetts, which would make sense as to how he sounded so calm when coming in such close to proximity to the creature which could eat him in seconds.
If you look closely in the video, the shark didn’t have a tag on it and it had a sliced dorsal fin, meaning it likely hasn’t previously come into contact with conservationists who tag the creatures to gain invaluable information on their movement.
As reported by the Miami Herald, conservancy officials spotted a small spot of blue paint on the underside of the shark, however, it’s believed this could easily have come from the fishermen’s boat.
Matty Riley/InstagramThe clip was then shared by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, which confirmed the shark in the picture was indeed a ‘large’ great white shark.
According to Mass Live, the population of great white sharks have dramatically increased around the Cape Cod area in recent years, while the exact population is still being studied. A total of three shark attacks have been reported in the state since 2000, fortunately none of them were fatal.
The creatures feed from the Cape’s grey seal population, which boomed following the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. In the early 1990s, there were just dozens of seals in the area – now there are said to be more than 15,000, Yankee Magazine reports.
If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via [email protected]
Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.