Video Shows Sharks Swarming, Attacking Charter Boat

A video circulating online last week showed a charter fishing boat being swarmed and attacked by sharks off the coast of Florida.

The incident took place on February 26 on a boat roughly 20 miles east off the coast of Florida's Cape Canaveral. A charter boat operated by Fin & Fly Fishing Charters was taking a customer on a fishing excursion. At one point, a customer visiting from New York, according to the Miami Herald, was attempting to reel in a sizeable 12-pound red snapper.

As the fish was pulled to the surface, it appeared to be half eaten and a shark attempted to steal it away. At this point, numerous other sharks also began attacking the man's haul, eventually pulling it off his line and fighting over it several feet away from the boat. The passengers also noticed that some of the sharks were, for some reason, attacking their craft's trolling motor.

A video of the incident taken from onboard the charter boat was shared on the company's official Instagram page last Monday, showing the frenzied scene from the moment the sharks began fighting for the snapper to their attempts to attack the motor.

"Shark attacks our trolling motor!" the company's post read. "Book your offshore shark trip today!"

"Dude, they are attacking each other. They're attacking the troller," one man can be heard saying in the video. "This is insane."

Speaking with the Miami Herald for a report published Monday, Jamie Glasner, a charter guide for Fin & Fly who was on the boat that day, said he had never witnessed such behavior from sharks and tried to surmise what about the engine had motivated their behavior.

"I've been doing this about 20 years, and I've never seen anything like it," he said. "Maybe it has to do with the vibration, or with it being electric. I'm not sure. They definitely wanted to attack the trolling motor."

Glasner said that the creatures that surrounded the boat were sandbar sharks. Roughly a dozen of their catches during the excursion were eaten by them, he estimated. Another video taken after the initial incident showed the sharks eventually settling down, though they continued to circle the craft.

"It's normal for us to have fish eaten by sharks, but to see [one] jump out of the water when you're pulling the fish up is not something we see," Glasner added. "That frenzy on the surface was a first for me. It usually happens below the surface, out of sight. It was a first time for me to see that. It was jaw-dropping. You definitely don't want to drop in the water during that."

Reports of sharks attacking motorboats off the Florida coast are not uncommon. Researchers suggest that their sensitivity to certain low-frequency noises might be what is prompting them to go after these crafts.

Speaking with Newsweek on Monday, Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, said that such scenarios as this are "not unusual."

"This happens from time-to-time. The sharks in the video are Sand Bar sharks. They are drawn to the boat by the struggling fishes being fished for on rod and reel," Naylor explained. "The sharks get agitated and competitive with one another in their efforts to steal the fishes that have been caught...Then, when there are no fishes for them to eat, they exhibit displacement behavior and target other things in the water that draw their attention like the moving propeller on a trolling motor. The observed sequence is not unusual."

Updated 3/4/24, 1:25 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include comment from Naylor.