Watch: Thousands Of Blacktip Sharks Swarm Florida Coast

PALM BEACH, FL — People who enter Florida’s waters to swim often do so in the company of sharks, but not necessarily thousands at once.

That, however, has been the case lately as thousands of blacktip sharks hang out off of Palm Beach’s coast. The sharks, commonly found in Florida waters, are known to migrate into the state’s warmer waters in the wintertime, but not generally this late in the season or as far north as they’ve been spotted, Florida Atlantic University professor Stephen Kaijura has been quoted by several media outlets as saying.

Kaijura and his students track the sharks’ annual migration and have been surprised at the numbers they’ve filmed in the waters off Palm Beach this year.

“There are literally tens of thousands of sharks a stone’s throw away from our shoreline,” he was quoted by CNN as saying.

Kaijura and his team from FAU Shark Migration posted aerial video of the shark swarm on Facebook Friday. “Thousands of sharks off Palm Beach and up to Jupiter,” they reported. “Very few sharks spotted from Miami to Palm Beach.”

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Why so many blacktips are congregating in the Palm Beach area, and why they chose to migrate later in the season than normal remains under investigation by the FAU team. Hoping to better understand the creatures, the FAU team has been actively catching, tagging and releasing blacktips off the Palm Beach coastline.

Blacktips are known to grow up to 6 feet in length and are responsible for many of the Sunshine State’s reported shark attacks. Rather skittish creatures, however, they are more likely to take off when humans are in the water, experts say.

Florida once again led the country and the world in the number of confirmed, unprovoked shark attacks in 2015. There were 30 confirmed attacks in Florida and 98 worldwide. The worldwide number broke the record of 88 set back in 2000.

While Florida does led the world in shark attacks, George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File, says the odds are against beachgoers becoming victims. That, however, doesn’t mean commonsense shouldn’t be used in the water.

“The sharks are swimming in and amongst us all the time,” he said. “They’re doing their thing.”

To avoid attacks, Burgess recommends people always remember the fact that humans are not part of a shark’s ecosystem.

“We’re invading their world,” he said. “We’ve got to have some boundaries. (The ocean) is not a backyard or the YMCA pool.”

People can also help themselves by:

• Not swimming at dusk, dawn or at night
• Not swimming where people are fishing, where fish are schooling or where seabirds are feeding
• Taking off shiny jewelry before getting in the water
• Hitting the shark on the nose, or clawing at the eyes or gills if attacked

For more information, visit the International Shark Attack File online.

Photo from the FAU Shark Migration Facebook page