I’m not sure how I missed this (it came out a few months ago), but a drone capturing footage of people’s reactions when they first see sharks beneath them in the ocean is certainly a study in animal behavior – be it human or otherwise. The footage above comes courtesy of the YouTube channel Drone Shark App, and the filmmaker cruises the waters of Bondi Beach, just east of downtown Sydney, on the regular. These are grey nurse sharks in the footage, not much of a threat to us, but it’s hard to tell what species they are on first glance, hence the reactions.
“I have so many of these shark interactions,” reads the video’s caption, “and I thought I would just share a few with you that are quite interesting. As we know, these are only grey nurse sharks and quite harmless here at Bondi Beach. Sometimes I do wonder though as you will see in a few of these clips.”
Australia obviously has one of the most active populations of ocean enthusiasts in the world – and that can mean surfers, swimmers, or paddlers. And Bondi is a place where active Australians like to get out in the ocean. So the footy captures reactions from both surfers and swimmers, most of whom are fully goggled and get better views than the surfers, thus their reactions are much more profound.
No human was harmed in the making of this edit. But it was certainly a fascinating three minutes.
