Dozens of Blacktip Sharks Spotted Off Florida Coast

A blacktip shark (Albert kok via Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.)

Dozens of sharks were spotted in an inlet in Boynton Beach, Florida, according to WPBF, which published an aerial photo of the sharks on June 13.

The photo was shot from a helicopter, showing blacktip sharks in the inlet.

Local shark expert Jim Abernathy told the news outlet: “This is very unusual that we have a large population of blacktip sharks anywhere in Palm Beach County this time of year because the black tip migration lasts from October until the end of March.”

He elaborated on the unusual sighting, saying, “Right now, the water is just too warm.”

Sharks are usually in Jacksonville, Florida, this time of the year. The water is cooler there, he said.

A school of blacktip sharks, meanwhile, was seen swimming off Palm Beach, Florida, in drone footage shared by Elasmobranch Research Laboratory, according to the Miami Herald in March.

He said that fish jumping out of the water is a sign to stay away.

“Don’t go in the water. That means that there’s some type of predator chasing the fish,” he said. He also advises people to stay away from swimming where people are fishing.

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“Fishermen are attracting sharks directly to the beach by just putting fish in the water so avoid fishermen at all costs,” Abernathy.

One local man told the news outlet that he spotted the fish jumping.

“They were jumping, coming from the dock area coming this way. So, it’s obvious there’s something in there,” said local man Cory O’Brien.

Shark Circles Swimmer

A large shark was seen circling a woman near a Florida beach as she was seemingly aware of the looming danger in video footage published late last month.

Stan Battles saw the shark swimming and captured a video of it from a nearby condo in Panama City.

The shark is seen swimming in the water before swimming out of the seagrass, according to the Panama City News Herald. The shark was doing figure eight motions in the muck and seagrass as the woman swam near it.

“It was just kind of crazy,” Battles told the Panama City News Herald. “Everyone on the beach, in the water, they had no clue.”

Someone then noticed the danger, yelling “shark” at the swimmer before she began swimming to the shore.

Stock image of a shark. (Skeeze/Pixabay)

Battles then went down to the beach and showed the video to the woman.

It’s not clear what kind of shark was seen in the video.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that there have been a number of shark sightings off Florida’s coastline in recent days. A hammerhead shark was spotted near Nokomis Beach near Venice off Florida’s Gulf Coast on May 28.