{"id":651364,"date":"2026-05-19T00:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651364\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T00:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:46:08","slug":"shark-spotted-at-beach-in-narragansett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651364\/","title":{"rendered":"Shark spotted at beach in Narragansett"},"content":{"rendered":"

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. (WJAR) \u2014 Dozens of witnesses reported shark sightings across Point Judith Pond over the weekend, beginning at Salty Brine State Beach Saturday and ending inside Billington Cove Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

“Pretty unique actually,” said Atlantic Shark Institute Executive Director Jon Dodd. “A Porbeagle shark came in by Salty Brine State Beach and caused a pretty big stir.”<\/p>\n

The shark, which witnesses said was about 7 feet long, eventually beached itself and died on the shore of Billington Cove in Wakefield.<\/p>\n

NBC 10’s Maddie Heimsch spoke with Atlantic Shark Institute Executive Director Jon Dodd about the shark sighting. (WJAR)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I could definitely see it was a shark,” said Ken O’Keefe, who lives on the cove. “I came back and woke my wife up because I wanted to make sure I had a witness and nobody thought I was losing my mind.”<\/p>\n

O’Keefe said he and his neighbors saw the animal thrashing in the shallow marina.<\/p>\n

“As it came closer to our docks, I saw that it was confused or struggling,” he said.<\/p>\n

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association came to the cove to do a necropsy on the shark.<\/p>\n

O’Keefe said NOAA told him the shark was a juvenile female.<\/p>\n

“Maybe [it] ended up on the rocks, got stuck a little bit too long, couldn’t breathe,” said Dodd.<\/p>\n

Dodd said the shark was likely trying to travel north to escape the warm weather.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People on the beach. (WJAR)<\/p>\n

“They love colder water, so it’s not odd for that shark to be here this time of year. The waters are getting a little warmer so that shark was about to leave,” he said.<\/p>\n

Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n

JOIN THE CONVERSATION (1)<\/p>\n

Dodd said porbeagle sharks are less dangerous than related species like great white sharks, but it’s still best to avoid them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NARRAGANSETT, R.I. (WJAR) \u2014 Dozens of witnesses reported shark sightings across Point Judith Pond over the weekend, beginning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-651364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}