Basking Shark off County Pier PCB , FL 3/17/2011

A lot of people are still asking about the basking shark sighting, I wasn't doing a blog when I took the photos and videos so although it's a little late this entry will be dedicated to the basking shark sighting.

(The following pictures & videos are owned by myself Linda Cavitt, & are not to be used without my permission)

On April 17, 2011, I & several other lucky anglers and tourists had the pleasure of seeing an extremely rare shark, a Basking Shark. Much like a whale shark they feed on plankton and krill. The shark we saw is guessitmated to be 28ft long and swam back and forth for several hours with it's mouth open obviously feeeding. Josh Reeves, a pier & kayak fishermen, was on the beach with his family when the shark was spotted. Thinking it was a whale shark at first, he grapped his kayak and paddled out with hoping to have a rare opportunity to paddle & swim with the shark. Once out with the shark it and it came close to the pier, it was identified as a rare basking shark.

Ernie called me and told me he was at the pier and that there was a "whale shark"  and nobody had a video camera, & I should come out there. At first I said no as I just come back from a fishing trip,  I live only a block from the pier but knowing it was spring break I wasn't sure I would find a parking spot in time. I decided that I would really like to capture video and raced over there with all my fishing gear still in the back of the truck. I luckily found a spot and ran towards the pier. The police were all standing in the parking lot, I guess there just just been a fight, so thinking I'm running to them they ask me if everything is ok, I quickly explain that there is a large rare shark that I was trying to get video off & ask them if they'd mind keeping and I on my fishing gear in the back of my truck...they look at me like I'm insane, and as I'm asking them I'm thinking they have a lot more to worry about them watching my stuff...lol

  I went  kayak fishing the following day, 1.5 miles (water depth 55 ft) off the beach about 5 miles west of where the basking shark was seen. The water was a beautiful blue and if  I hadn't been looking at the beach I would have thought that I was way offshore. The water color was amazing and even more interesting, was the little dark blue krill jumping out of the water everywhere. They were popping the surface, almost like when you open a can of soda and it is fizzing, is the best way I can describe it. I could scoop the krill up with my hand and they would jump all over the place like a bunch of tiny blue fleas! I am sure this was why the basking shark was here, feeding on the krill.

                     

There were several other sighting the same week. Charles Chan also saw about an 8 fter the next day while on his boat, & there was also a sighting farther west later that week.

                                           photo courtesy of Charles Chan

                                          photo courtesy of Charles Chan

The video it turns out became quite popular, because of being on the pier, along with Josh being in his kayak, I was able to get a great perspective of the massive basking shark! I received phone calls from media all around the world and the video was shown on just about every local tv station from coast to coast. It was a a feature video on yahoo, msn, they showed it on Fox, CNN national news. Josh & I were even  interviewed on Good Morning America.

Eric R. Hoffmayer, Ph.D., Research Fishery Biologist for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and I have been in contact since the sighting and he recently informed me that a paper he wrote has been accepted by the  online journal called Marine Biodiversity Records! I will post a link when it becomes available.