A hammerhead shark was caught on camera about 3 miles off Newport.
The hammerhead is native to Southern New England.
Jon Dodd of the Atlantic Shark Institute shares his insight into hammerhead sharks after one was caught on camera off Newport.
Jon Dodd, executive director of the Atlantic Shark Institute, said these types of encounters are becoming more common as waters warm in the summer and food sources increase.
“We’ve actually in the last couple of days only, we’ve seen about a dozen hammerheads, smooth hammerheads,” Dodd said. “I’m pretty sure this is going to be a smooth.”
“It’s tough to tell. The video isn’t quite clear enough or good enough, but we’ve been running into a lot of smooth hammerheads these last couple of days.”
Dodd couldn’t give any estimates on size or age for the shark in the video. He spoke about the risk level.
“They’ve got teeth,” he said. “They’re really fast when they need to be.”
Anyone going in the water should keep an eye out.
“But no, the odds are very, very low that this shark will be in 2 feet of water where someone might be standing or trying to cool off a little bit,” Dodd said.
Dodd said hammerhead sharks are in the top ten in terms of attacks on people, according to the International Shark Attack File, but there have been no fatalities as a result.