By Pete Thomas/GrindTv
I spend hours a day scouring social media sites and see all kinds of shark images, but this week two images stood out for the same reason: The sharks were free jumpers.
It’s no secret that certain sharks will occasionally breach, but to capture this event with a camera is somewhat rare, unless the shark has been hooked and is trying to get free.
The first image that caught my eye was that of a thresher shark leaping high above the surface beyond Cabo San Lucas at Baja California’s tip (posted at top and bottom).
The image, captured by Frankie Grant, was posted to Facebook on Sunday by Cabo Trek. It has since been shared from that page more than 1,300 times.
In a response to seeing this photo, Bernardo Alps, a Southern California photographer, posted an image showing a free-jumping mako shark. Alps photographed the sequence from aboard the Voyager outside of King Harbor in Redondo Beach (middle sequence).
Alps said the shark jumped twice, with the second coming about 15 seconds after the first. After seeing the first jump, the photographer anticipated the second.
Presumably, the thresher breach was captured after Grant spotted the initial breach.
Threshers and makos are both known to jump, but again, that is most commonly witnessed after the predators are hooked by anglers.
Anyway, I’m just sharing these shots because they stand out among so many fairly routine underwater shark images, and because they reveal another dynamic of shark behavior.
It's tragic and infuriating that most such photos are of sharks being tortured.
Posted by: Mary Finelli | Jan 12, 2015 at 10:54 AM