The great white shark is an enigma. They aren’t the murderous, blood thirsty monsters of Jaws lore. Anybody who spends a chunk of their life in the ocean knows we cross their paths countless times and never even know it. And anybody with that same understanding also knows they’re an unpredictable animal. There’s a reason a simple sighting clears lineups and causes beach closures: precaution.
A woman named Jen seems to have a different perspective though. Either that or she felt like her left arm from the elbow down might be worth a good story.
Footage of the woman shows her reaching out to pet a great white shark while on an expedition off the Georgia coast with Knot Lucky Fishing and its White Shark Tagging Program with Starbrite, Project SeaSafe and Gray FishTag Research.
“She reached out to pet a great white shark. The great white had other plans,” wrote Knot Lucky Fishing, an offshore fishing service for veterans battling PTSD. “Watch that head swing. Right off Tybee Island, one second Jen, one of our veterans, is laying her hand on a wild white shark like it’s the family dog, and the next second that shark whips around and lunges toward her. Everybody on the boat felt that one in their chest.”
According to FOX Weather, Knot Lucky Fishing has tagged 10 sharks on its expeditions, and the new video came from an attempt to tag one more off the coast of Tybee Island. In a post shared to Facebook, they explain that Jen was in no danger, but as you can see, the shark probably wasn’t thrilled about having a large hook in its mouth and being dragged above the surface. The circumstances contradict the idea that “the crew had that shark under control the whole time, and it never got close enough to do any harm.”
Maybe so, or maybe they saw Jen sit back down after her petting zoo experience, saw that her full arm was intact, and said “Yeah, we had it all under control.” Ironically, the shark was never tagged because, “We never had a safe shot, and we will never force it. The shark’s safety and the crew’s safety come first, every single time…”
Tagging and releasing sharks is a valuable piece of understanding one of the ocean’s greatest apex predators. Their health is key to the health of the entire ocean. It seems contradictory to that work, at best, to encourage or allow an unqualified passenger on a boat to reach overboard and pet one.
