The waters of the Bay of Fundy were bursting with surprises this week as a tour cruise spotted one of the ocean\u2019s most notorious apex predators.<\/p>\n
Mandy Gayle, a guide with Freeport Whale & Seabird Tours, spotted the curious creature on a tour approximately 1.5 miles offshore of Freeport, N.S. on Tuesday Sept. 2.<\/p>\n
In her 30 years in the profession, Gayle said this is the first time she\u2019s spotted a great white shark.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that they\u2019re there. We know that there are some white sharks that are tagged in the area,\u201d she told CityNews. \u201cBut I\u2019ve never actually seen a white shark before with my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The day prior, crews were in the area looking at and taking pictures of a humpback whale that had died and was floating around in the area. When they returned the next day, they found the white shark feasting away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing, I was in disbelief,\u201d Gayle said. \u201cI was sitting there watching it, taking pictures, thinking to myself \u2018am I really seeing what I\u2019m seeing?’\u201d<\/p>\n
The passengers on board were just as excited.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was one little boy on there that when we were done watching it he just kept saying \u2018I seen a shark. I seen a white shark!’\u201d Gayle said. \u201cThis kid\u2019s going to go back to school with the best story ever and nobody is going to believe him.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the sighting was a first for Gayle, she said she thinks the great whites might make more appearances off the Bay as waters continue to warm. <\/p>\n
Dr. Neil Hammerschlag, owner of\u00a0Atlantic Shark Expeditions<\/a>\u00a0and executive director of the Shark Research Foundation, previously told CityNews the Canadian great white shark population is still endangered, but does appear to be recovering. With that, warmer waters and increasing food sources in the Atlantic waters is making these areas more accessible to sharks<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this now for about 30 years and I can see a difference in the species that are in the water and what\u2019s around us,\u201d Gayle said. \u201cSo I\u2019m sure in another 20 or 30 years and the water gets a little bit warmer again that we\u2019re going to see a lot more things like this.\u201d<\/p>\n And if seeing the white shark wasn\u2019t enough, Gayle said it was a full week filled with miraculous sightings.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only did we see this white shark feasting on the humpback, but we also saw the Bay of Fundy\u2019s only orca \u2014 Old Thom \u2014 and we saw a leatherback sea turtle, which is endangered,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was an insane week!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The waters of the Bay of Fundy were bursting with surprises this week as a tour cruise spotted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-129393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}