A behavior thought only to be displayed in South Africa, a video reveals a great white leaping out of the water while attacking a seal near Alcatraz.
A scene thought only to be viewable in South Africa, tourists and park officials witnessed a great white shark leaping out of the water while attacking a seal near Alcatraz Island in California this Saturday. According to an Associated Press report, people waiting in line for the ferry witnessed the brutal attack on a seal by a 10 foot great white just feet away from the dock.
According to David McGuire, the director of the Shark Stewards group based in San Francisco and a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, “This is the first recorded predation event by a white shark I’m aware of in the San Francisco Bay. It is definitely a white shark, about 8-10 feet, based on the video sent to us. The tourists were very excited.”
There is no recent record of a great white attacking a human inside the bay, but great whites have been spotted in the area on multiple occasions. A study from researchers at Stanford in 2009 tracked several great whites in the bay.
There have been five white sharks that entered the bay over the last two years, and one has come back a total of four times. There is only one documented fatality from a shark in the San Francisco area, when Albert Kogler Jr. died in less than 15 feet of water in 1959 off of Baker Beach, a mile west of the Golden Gate Bridge.