Shocking footage showed a shark attacking a seal just feet from the shore of Nantucket on Sunday, turning the water red with blood and causing authorities to ban swimming for the rest of the afternoon.
Amazing video of the attack, Acquired by Nantucket CurrentThe fins can be seen thrashing about violently in the water just beyond the shore at Great Point Beach.
Then, in the sea of blood, the shark’s dorsal fin breaks the surface, and the seal’s carcass floats up for a moment, but the shark bites it down again.
“Oh my goodness, that shark ate a seal,” exclaimed Sandy Fink, the woman filming the video.
Fink, an Orlando resident who was vacationing on the Massachusetts island with her boyfriend, said she was enjoying a day at the beach when she spotted the shark.
“He was fishing off the shore and I was videotaping a seal, and I thought, ‘Is that blood? Wait! That’s a shark, eating a seal,'” Fink told the Current.
Her boyfriend, Ron Welter, was about to go for a swim when she stopped him.
“Then I ran over to show Ron the video and he was like, ‘I was just going inside to cool off,’ and I was like, ‘No!’
The unsafely close attack was just one of several sharks killing seals reported along the island’s east coast on Sunday, Diane Lang of the sanctuary management board told local media.
The management board, which owns and operates the Coscata-Coach Wildlife Refuge, which includes Great Point Beach, banned swimming for the rest of the afternoon following the report.
The group also closed beaches to swimmers last year after numerous shark sightings.
According to the Current, the seal population around Nantucket has increased in recent years, leading to more shark sightings in the summer as predators feast their eyes on the buffet.
