Photo: @corfino_photography
It’s not surprising that more and more consumer drones flying over lineups has resulted in more and more footage of sharks nearby. If nothing else, the constant reminders that they’re often nearby is reassurance that the apex predators have little to no interest in us. They swim around, they keep their distance, and typically dart off without surfers having any clue. A Northern California drone videographer has seen that sequence play out before, but one moment on June 10 stood out precisely because the shark displayed a little more curiosity than usual by circling a solo surfer in Aptos, California.
The pilot, Nick Bertocchini, told a local news station the surfer got out of the water after the incident. He elaborated on the whole encounter when he posted the video on his own Instagram page.
“I’ve spent a lot of time flying my drone watching sharks around surfers and this was one of the only times I was actually nervous,” he wrote. “I tried to warn the surfer, Rex, who I talked to afterwards, by revving the drones motors. And moving to the side of the shark. It’s something that has worked in the past in alerting surfers of sharks. Usually the sharks are slightly curious and move on quickly but this one seemed a little more investigative than usual.”
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It’s a common misconception that circling is a predatory act. It’s observational behavior. You’d never want to find yourself on the other end of that encounter long enough for an animal to decide it wants to investigate from a closer distance, but swimming away frantically or erratically can trigger a shark’s instinct to chase.
“It’s really important to have a good mental state when you go in the water with sharks, because they’re apex predators. And while I can’t prove that they can read your mind, they can certainly read your body,” shark expert Ocean Ramsey once told The Inertia. “A lot of people aren’t too aware that they actually give away a lot of information in their body language. From studying psychology and animal behavior, you start to become sensitive to body language.”
