Caught On Camera: Shark Sighting Off The Jersey Shore
By Todd Quinones
SOMERS POINT, N.J., (CBS) - A rare shark sighting off the Jersey shore - And the action is all caught on tape!
One shark expert who has seen the video believes it was a great white shark that is about 12 feet long that was spotted just off the New Jersey coast.
This was a sight experienced fisherman David Hermann had never seen before.
"When he came along there and then he went over towards the outboard I just went 'we're out of here. We are done with this,'" Hermann said.
He and his son-in-law Anthony Cortes were out on his 19 foot fishing boat about seven miles off the Atlantic City coast when they came across a floating dead dolphin.
Suddenly they spotted the dorsal fin of a large shark sticking out of the water.
"We're watching it. It was circling around the dolphin and then attacking it," Hermann said.
You can see at one point the shark jumps up almost out of the water as he takes another bite.
"There are sharks all around us," Biologist Marc Kind said.
He oversees the shark exhibit at Adventure Aquarium in Camden.
He's seen this video and he believes it was a great white.
"They are opportunistic predators. When they feel there is an opportunity to feed on something dead or alive they're going to do that," Kind said.
For Hermann it was the experience of a lifetime that happened on a random Tuesday while fishing for flounder.
"He was a big, big fish," Hermann said.
Kind says during the summer sharks migrate off the Jersey coast as they follow fish swimming in the warmer waters.
Kind added direct human shark contact is very rare.
