A Cape Breton lobster fisherman and his crew had the encounter of a lifetime this week when a 4.5-metre great white shark circled his boat just off Sight Point, N.S., coming close enough to briefly bite the hull.
Jimmy MacArthur, who has fished these waters since 1984, was working about three kilometres from Inverness in approximately 18 metres of water when the encounter occurred Monday morning.
MacArthur said he heard a splash but it wasn’t until he saw the dorsal fin that he knew it was a shark.
“I’m kind of a shark fan and I’m on the ocean my whole life and I never seen anything like I seen that day,” MacArthur said. “It was pretty good.”
Cape Breton fisherman has close encounter with great white shark
The massive predator spent about four minutes investigating the vessel.
MacArthur said the shark came within an arm’s length and at one point tried to take a bite out of the back of the boat.
Warren Joyce, a shark expert with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, confirmed the species after reviewing video of the encounter.
“It is a white shark, yes,” Joyce said, noting the animal’s behaviour of approaching and testing the boat with its mouth is characteristic of shark curiosity.
The shark appeared to have a noticeable protrusion under its dorsal fin that caught the researcher’s attention.
“It might be a wound that’s just kind of healing over,” Joyce speculated.
“I’ve never quite seen something that large,” he added.
The sighting occurred in the same general area where Canada’s first recorded great white shark attack happened in 2021, Joyce said.
He noted that while such encounters remain rare, sightings have increased in recent years.
“We are seeing more and more of them every year,” he said.
MacArthur, who called the experience “really exciting,” said he never felt in danger despite the shark’s close approach.
He said he wasn’t afraid because he knew his boat was big enough to keep him and his crew safe.
Great white sharks are a protected species in Canada and it is against the law to touch or harm them.
Joyce says anyone sighting them should “enjoy the view and just use common sense and caution.”
He said he didn’t see any signs of tracking tags on the shark and believes it is an untagged animal.
Joyce said he has written his colleagues at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy in Cape Cod and sent them the video.
He said researchers there will check a database of over 700 identified white sharks to determine if the shark has been previously documented.
For MacArthur, the encounter marked a career highlight.
His only regret?
“My wife was supposed to come out with me that day,” he said with a laugh. “She missed the good thing.”
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