Heart-Stopping Moment 10ft Hammerhead Shark Stalks Care-Free Swimmer Off Coast Of Miami

Nov 25, 2020 by apost team

Drone footage taken in Miami, Florida, this month showed a heartstopping moment in which a 10 ft hammerhead shark is seen swimming beneath an unsuspecting swimmer as he enjoyed a care-free dip in the sea. Jason McIntosh, a local wildlife-photography enthusiast, caught the thrilling scene while flying his drone over water last Sunday and posted it on Instagram, where the video has since gone viral. 

"I was flying the drone just checking out the south beach for taking pictures," McIntosh told the Daily Mail. "My passion is to shoot wildlife in the ocean."

According to McIntosh, it isn't unusual to encounter hammerheads around the area, but he was startled to see the proximity to which it was lurking around the swimmer. 

"My eyes lit up when I saw the guy floating backwards swimming with the shark starting to circle him," he said. 

"I had no way to warn him."

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The footage shows a man breezily floating in the sea as he smoothly paddles away, apparently unaware there was an enormous predator close by – even giving a 'thumbs up' to the camera. 

"The shark was in its ocean," McIntosh said. "You can't forget it's their ocean, not ours. We are in their environment when we are in their ocean."

McIntosh took to Instagram to upload the footage the day after, where it gained quite the traction, garnering over 32,000 views since it was uploaded. The videographer humorously added the song Can't Touch This by McHammer as a soundtrack to his post, adding a much-needed light-heartedness to it. 

Mick Fanning, a former Australian professional surfer who miraculously survived a great white shark attack in 2015, also caught wind of the nail-biting viral video.

"Holy [explicit]. Wow!" he wrote. 

The post attracted many comments from astonished users, with one writing: "Wow Jason, this video is extraordinary."

While another jokingly wrote: "I know when you're drone is over me it's time to get out!"

Thankfully, the shark eventually swam away, and the swimmer remained, to McIntosh's knowledge, unharmed. 

According to National Geographic, hammerhead sharks are identified by their mallet-shaped head, which offers the species a unique advantage when it comes to hunting prey. Their widely spaced eyes mean the predators have a superior visual range to other sharks, and, together with their specialized sensory organs, the sharks are exceptional hunters.

There are nine hammerhead shark species, of which the great hammerhead is the largest, growing up to a whopping 20 ft and 1,000 pounds. The species can be found in temperate and tropical waters and are often spotted in the summer when they mass-migrate to seek cooler weather. 

According to the World Wildlife Fund, hammerhead shark populations are at risk thanks to rampant overfishing and their by-products' luxurious status in some countries. Their fins, which can cost as much as $135/kg in Hong Kong, are considered a status symbol and are often included on the menus of celebratory events.

While the footage might seem terrifying, hammerhead sharks are actually relatively harmless, although great hammerheads can prove dangerous thanks to their enormous size. 

The incident marked the second time a massive shark was spotted in Miami, with a 2,000-pound great white shark making a pit-stop off the sunny city's coast just five days prior. OCEARCH, a sealife research NGO, has been following the great white since it was first discovered in September 2019. The organization is currently tracking its journey from the coast of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and hopes to discover more of the species along the way. The World Wildlife Fund has the great white shark listed as a vulnerable population, only a step away from being classified as endangered. 

Named Unama'ki, which means 'land of fog' in the indigenous people of Nova Scotia's language, she's the second largest of the species for the organization to have found so far, measuring 15 feet and 5 inches and weighing 2,075 pounds. Since researchers first started tracking her, the shark has been spotted in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia Beach, and off the coast of Atlantic City in New Jersey.

You can follow her journey live online here. 

Although Unama'ki is certainly massive, her size doesn't even come close to some other sharks discovered more recently. According to CNN, another mammoth-sized female great white shark was found in the waters of Nova Scotia just last month. Weighing 3,541 pounds and measuring 17 feet 2 inches in length, the shark has been dubbed the "Queen of the ocean" by OCEARCH. 

What would you do if you saw a massive shark swimming beneath you? Have you ever had a close encounter with these terrifying marine animals? Let us know in the comments, and make sure you pass this along to your friends and family!