{"id":558457,"date":"2026-04-30T09:23:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T09:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/558457\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T09:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T09:23:15","slug":"giant-sharks-seen-leaping-out-the-water-off-uk-coastlines-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/558457\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant sharks seen leaping out the water off UK coastlines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Hundreds of basking sharks have been seen breaching the water near the shores of Ireland in what can only be described as &#8216;nature at its most raw and powerful&#8217; best.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  And don&#8217;t worry, it could even happen close to home, as basking sharks have been known to do similar around our coastlines, too.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n    Just basking in the glorious sunshine&#8230; \ud83e\udd88 \u2600\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcf8 Roundstone Bay and Islands Boat Tours<br \/>\ud83d\udccd Roundstone, Connemara<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BaskingShark?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">#BaskingShark<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Roundstone?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">#Roundstone<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Connemara?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">#Connemara<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Galway?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">#Galway<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Ireland?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">#Ireland<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tJoH4FDKIs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/tJoH4FDKIs<\/a>\n  <\/p>\n<p>\n    \u2014 Visit Galway (@visit_galway) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visit_galway\/status\/2048516777009619313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">April 26, 2026<\/a>\n  <\/p>\n<p>  Why do basking sharks breach?<\/p>\n<p>\n  Breaching behaviour is something we are lucky to encounter during the summer months. It occurs in the Irish Sea and also off the coast of Scotland.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Whilst we are unsure of why basking sharks breach, there are some theories for this behaviour.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  According to <a href=\"https:\/\/baskingsharkscotland.co.uk\/can-basking-sharks-breach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">BaskingSharksScotland<\/a>: &#8220;It was thought that basking sharks could be breaching to dislodge parasites, as seen in whales.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Basking sharks are often sighted with parasitic lampreys, but research we contributed to discovered that parasites were not dislodged during breaching, which makes this theory unlikely to be the reason.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Researchers from the University of Exeter deployed satellite tags on sharks in the Hebridean Sea, which revealed new insights into the breaching behaviour of basking sharks.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The three sharks tagged made 67 breaches in 41 days, which revealed the speed, repeatability, and times of day that this occurred.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Recommended reading: \u200b\n<\/p>\n<p>  How often do basking sharks breach?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n  Seeing a basking shark breach is very much a \u2018right place, right time\u2019 moment \u2013 and there are very few who have been lucky enough to capture this on film or camera.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The University of Exeter team found that the three sharks they tagged could breach as often as six times a day.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Sometimes, these breaches occurred in quick succession; one individual was recorded making four breaches in 47 seconds.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Have you ever seen a basking shark breaching before? Let us know in the comments below.\n<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of basking sharks have been seen breaching the water near the shores of Ireland in what can&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-558457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}