{"id":583340,"date":"2026-08-04T22:30:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T22:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/583340\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T22:30:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T22:30:25","slug":"large-shark-sighting-in-jersey-closes-popular-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/583340\/","title":{"rendered":"Large shark sighting in Jersey closes popular beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Beachgoers in Jersey<\/a> were forced to evacuate the water on Saturday following a rare shark<\/a> sighting close to the shore. <\/p>\n

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution<\/a> (RNLI) closed off St Ouen\u2019s Bay for 45 minutes after two lifeguards spotted the creature<\/a> around 40 metres from the water\u2019s edge. <\/p>\n

One lifeguard reported seeing the dark grey shark, which was around 3.6m long, swim directly beneath their rescue board.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for RNLI said: \u201cLifeguards at St Ouen\u2019s Bay responded to a suspected shark sighting off the coast on the morning of Saturday 1st August, by one of our lifeguards in the water. <\/p>\n

\u201cA decision was made to red flag the beach and get all members of the public out of the water as a precaution. The team then used a jet ski to survey the area, before concluding that there was no further sign. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe beach was red flagged for 45 minutes. There have been no sightings since.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe shark was spotted 40 metres from shore at St Ouen’s Bay (Danny Evans \/ Jersey Images)<\/p>\n

Surf instructor Jesse Heddercott, 16, was teaching people to surf when lifeguards cleared people from the water.<\/p>\n

He told BBC: \u201cNothing like this has ever happened in Jersey before, so it’s pretty crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Mr Heddercott, a lifeguard first spotted the shark swimming under him on a rescue board, but thought it might have been a tuna.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then another lifeguard spotted it and it was confirmed to be – probably – a shark,\u201d he told the broadcaster. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey red-flagged the beach and we all had to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not known what species the shark was, but Mr Heddercott said it would have been \u201cmore scared of us than we are of them\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA 4ft shark was spotted in Dorset last month (RobYoung\/BNPS)<\/p>\n

The sighting comes less than a month after a 4ft-long shark<\/a> was spotted by a member of public in Weymouth, Dorset.<\/p>\n

Hayley Roberts, a marine engagement assistant for the Dorset Wildlife Trust, confirmed that it was a blue shark, which she said were usually in UK waters at this time of year. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis species has an elongated, slender shape, a long conical snout, long pointed pectoral fins, and a metallic blue body.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlue sharks, particularly a dominance of females, are usually present in UK waters from May to October, when water conditions are favourable and there is an abundance of prey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are usually spotted well offshore, so to see one in a harbour is quite rare, although it does happen from time to time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn recent years there has been an increase in blue shark sightings, alongside other shark species such as porbeagle and thresher sharks, off the south coast.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-583340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}