Man Captures Video of Shark Attacking His Kayak

A kayaker off the coast of Hawaii met with a big surprise on Saturday after a massive tiger shark rammed into him.

Scott Haraguchi, who goes by @hawaiinearshorefishing on Instagram, shared a video of the fishy encounter to YouTube, showing how the tiger shark rushed towards his kayak with its mouth wide open.

"Ahh! Tiger shark!" he can be heard yelling in the video. "Tiger shark rammed me."

Haraguchi was fishing around a mile offshore from Kualoa in Windward Oahu at the time and had left his GoPro camera on after catching his most recent fish when the shark lunged at this kayak.

"I heard a whooshing sound that sounded like a boat heading towards me without the motor and I looked up and I saw this big brown thing. My brain thought it was a turtle but then I got slammed by it and realized that it was a tiger shark," Haraguchi told local news KITV4 Island Television.

Tiger sharks, so-named for their characteristic striped markings, are the fourth largest species of shark, after the whale shark, basking shark, and great white shark. These massive fish can grow to lengths of up to 18 feet, and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds, according to the ocean conservation group Oceana.

Tiger sharks have a vastly ranging diet, including crustaceans, seas, birds, sea snakes, and even dolphins. In Hawaiian waters, they often eat green turtles and Hawaiian monk seals, which have nesting beaches on the archipelago.

They are categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List as "near threatened" throughout their range, mainly due to deliberate fishing for their fins, flesh, and oil, and indirectly as bycatch in other fisheries.

Haraguchi told KITV4 that he wasn't sure why the shark had attacked him, but had noticed a wounded seal nearby shortly afterward, which led him to suggest that the shark had perhaps mistaken him for its dinner.

This encounter came mere hours before a 20-foot shark was spotted near North Beach on Oahu, causing the closure of the beach. Whether this is the same shark remains unclear.

According to the Florida Museum's International Shark Attack File, tiger sharks are one of the "big three" species of sharks implicated in large numbers of human attacks, alongside the great white and bull shark. This is due to their larger size and possession of shearing teeth.

Haraguchi said that after he kicked the shark away from his kayak, he carried on fishing, reflecting afterward that he was likely running on adrenaline at the time.

"I realize that life is short, time is short on Earth, so make the most of it," he said.

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