Stunned tourists watch as a great white shark devours a seal at Alcatraz
Cellphone video captured the dramatic moment when a group of stunned tourists got a firsthand look at a great white shark’s feeding habits in the wild as it devoured a seal and left a pool of blood near Alcatraz Island.
The video is the first recording showing the shark’s feeding habits in the San Francisco Bay, said David McGuire, director of the San Francisco-based shark conservation group Shark Stewards.
“For me it’s pretty exciting and a sign that the health is returning to the San Francisco Bay ecosystem,†McGuire said in a statement. “We swim in the Bay every day at the Dolphin Club without a shark encounter. It’s why we call this month Sharktober.â€
In the video shot by Meredith Coppolo Shindler, startled tourists waiting for a ferry Saturday gazed at the shark as it consumed the seal at the Alcatraz Island dock.
The 8- to 10-foot shark gulped the seal carcass just feet from the dock, said McGuire, a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences.
A sea of red lingered above the water as the shark’s fins peaked from the ocean surface.
“It’s right under us,†a boy says in the video. “It’s Jaws. It’s Jaws. It’s Jaws.â€
Soon after the feeding frenzy began, the shark disappeared.
“That’s the best thing I have ever seen in my life,†the boy said.
Great white sharks have been seen in San Francisco Bay in the past. Over a two-year period, five great whites entered the Bay with one shark entering four times, according to a study by the Stanford Tagging of Pacific Pelagics in 2009.
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Officials have documented only one shark fatality in San Francisco, McGuire said. Albert Kogler Jr., 18, died after a shark attacked him off Baker Beach on May 7, 1959, he said.
“The risk of shark attack is extremely low,†McGuire said.
In Southern California, experts say a possible record-breaking El Niño has been attracting dozens of sharks to the area as their food sources migrate to more tropical regions.
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