{"id":583924,"date":"2026-08-13T23:16:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/583924\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T23:16:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:16:21","slug":"maine-lifeguard-says-shark-dragged-him-5-feet-underwater-as-officials-warn-of-increased-sightings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/583924\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine lifeguard says shark dragged him 5 feet underwater as officials warn of increased sightings"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lifeguard in Maine<\/a> said he “started swimming like hell” when a shark grabbed onto his buoy and pulled him underwater off the coast of Scarborough Beach on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Greg Wilfert said he initially thought he was caught in the propeller of a boat.<\/p>\n

“‘Cause that’s the only thing I could think of until I realized there was no boat,” he said.<\/p>\n

Wilfert said he was pulled about 5 feet underwater before he was able to get free and emerge on shore unharmed.<\/p>\n

“It was frightening,” he said. “I’m not going to deny that.”<\/p>\n

More shark sightings<\/p>\n

Officials along the East Coast say there are more sharks closer to shore in areas where they don’t usually go.<\/p>\n

Since last week, at least a dozen sharks have been spotted close to popular beaches in the area of Wilfert’s encounter, according to Scarborough’s marine resources officer Daryen Granata.<\/p>\n

“Usually we’ll see one or two here and there. This is a large volume, larger than I’ve seen, and I’ve worked this area for 30-plus years,” Granata said.<\/p>\n

The trend is happening as conservation efforts have led to an increase in marine life populations in recent years, experts say.<\/p>\n

“We’re gonna see more of everything, including more sharks,” OCEARCH founder Chris Fischer explained.<\/p>\n

His nonprofit studies sharks by catching, tagging and collecting data before releasing them back into the ocean.<\/p>\n

“It means just try to be a little bit more aware of what’s going on in the environment around you. You see a lot of life, steer clear of that,” he warned.<\/p>\n

Still, shark encounters remain rare. Last year, the International Shark Attack File reported 25 unprovoked bites.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lifeguard in Maine said he “started swimming like hell” when a shark grabbed onto his buoy and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,4739,386],"class_list":["post-583924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-shark-attack","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}