![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/7d4f968b-1a7c-4ec8-b6ed-c97d62bd8a92.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nCharles Gaddy was tuna fishing with his dad on Sunday, more than 40 miles northeast of Oregon Inlet, when he saw something he\u2019d never seen before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just looking in the water, seeing if, you know, any birds or anything, and I see this big gray fish with white dots,\u201d said Gaddy. \u201cJust from reading books and watching movies as a kid, I was like, \u2018that\u2019s got to be a whale shark.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old said they circled it. He grabbed his GoPro camera and started recording.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just sitting there, swimming beside us. It really, truly was amazing,\u201d said Gaddy.<\/p>\n
Whale sharks are the world\u2019s largest fish. They\u2019re currently listed as endangered by the Union for the Conservation of Nature.<\/p>\n
In the Western Atlantic, whale sharks are primarily found in the Gulf and throughout the Caribbean, according to Eric Hoffmayer, a research fishing biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service. He said they\u2019ve seen numerous whale sharks make their way up the Gulf Stream, ending up in the New England area in late summer and early fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had an animal last year that we tagged off Tampa and within a month was off New York, and cruised right past North Carolina about this time of year,\u201d said Hoffmayer. \u201cIt\u2019s not unheard of, but it\u2019s not real common either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gaddy recognized how lucky he was to experience a sighting.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to see one in person, especially locally, it\u2019s very truly amazing,\u201d said Gaddy. \u201cIt\u2019s no doubt a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I\u2019m no doubt very blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you do encounter a whale shark in the wild, Hoffmayer said, you need to be careful if you\u2019re in a boat because they spend a lot of time at the surface. If you get in the water, keep a safe distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people I\u2019ve talked to who have encountered whale sharks, it\u2019s like a life-changing experience,\u201d said Hoffmayer. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool to see an animal that large in the wild doing its thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can report whale shark sightings to the University of Southern Mississippi\u2019s Center for Fisheries Research and Development<\/a>. If you\u2019re able to capture a good picture of a whale shark, you can see if it matches one already in a database by uploading the photo and information about the sighting online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Gaddy was tuna fishing with his dad on Sunday, more than 40 miles northeast of Oregon Inlet,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[15773,81662,2027,307124,62767,79,8207,201],"class_list":["post-712307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-atlantic-ocean","tag-caught-on-camera","tag-endangered-species","tag-oregon-inlet","tag-outer-banks","tag-science","tag-shark","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712307","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=712307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}