For the first time, there’s video footage of a great white shark snatching a fish from a fishing line. Brian Skerry, a filmmaker for National Geographic, worked with boat captains in the Cape Cod area to capture the behavior on film. Apparently, sport fishermen have been reporting incidents for the past few years, but no one has caught it on camera until now. It happened so quickly, even Skerry was shocked.
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“It was so sudden, it wasn’t even a second. [The shark] just rocketed through and then it was over.” Skerry said.
[RELATED: ‘Absolutely Unreal’: Rare Whale Shark Spotted off California Coast]
An Instagram post sharing the video from National Geographic Society explains that in recent years, juvenile sharks have begun “stealing” striped bass from fishing lines with increased frequency. “This footage marks the first time this split-second depredation behavior has been successfully caught on camera,” wrote the National Geographic Society.
While this behavior might be annoying to sport fishermen, Skerry says that it’s indicative of an increasingly healthy marine ecosystem.
Watch a great white shark snatch a fish from a fishing line below (or see it here).
Header stock image by Ortwin Khan / 500px/Getty Images
