‘Once in a lifetime experience’: Whale shark spotted in Waikiki

WAIKIKI (KHON2) — Several boat tour operators had the ultimate experience on Friday after seeing a juvenile whale shark off Waikiki.

Kasia Gasior works on Living Ocean Tours and said one of her co-workers first spotted the huge fish.

“I didn’t see a dorsal fin come up, so I was like okay is it a huge tiger shark? Then my Captain Liz pulled us closer and we were like, ‘Oh my God! It’s a whale shark!’ And everyone lost it,” Gasior told KHON2.

She said the whale shark was checking them out and coming up to the boat. “None of us have ever seen one before, but it was a puppy, and I’m like, if that’s a puppy, I don’t want to know what mama looks like,” Gasior said laughing.

She and others believe it was about 20-feet in length. The largest whale shark ever recorded was about 60 feet in length.

“It was going boat to boat, it was not shy, it was super friendly checking out the boats and people, it was incredible, I’ve never seen one before and seeing it off the shores of Waikiki, it just doesn’t happen often,” she added.

She is right.

Hawaii Unchartered Research Collective has been studying whale sharks in Hawaiian waters since 2017. The director of the group said there have been 718 whale shark sightings statewide dating back to 1991.

“Of those 718 sightings, only nine or 10 have been off Waikiki,” said Maria Harvey, Hawaii Unchartered Research Collective director.

“I wouldn’t say it’s uncommon or rare to see whale sharks here in Hawaii, because we do have a lot of them, but it is less common to see them off Waikiki, and for that reason we’re unsure, but it is one of the things we’re looking at with seasonality and the movement patterns of these animals in Hawaiian waters,” she added.

The juvenile whale shark then started swimming towards people in the water.

“We start freaking out,” said Johnny Hoffman, who works for Honolulu Snorkel Company. “I haven’t seen one in my lifetime, so that was definitely a life changing experience.”

“It swam straight towards us and that was a little eerie, we want to move back but it kept coming closer and closer, then I turned the camera around to show how stoked we are but it was just amazing, unreal,” he added.

Even the Director of the Waikiki Aquarium is envious of the groups sighting.

“Seeing it that close to Waikiki, which was nicely framed in the background of that video, yeah, very, very unusual, lucky people,” Dr. Andrew Rossiter said.

He said there was another sighting on the Waianae coast about three weeks ago.

“They are completely harmless, they feed on the smallest animals in the ocean, which is zooplankton, phytoplankton and really small fishes, so not a danger to humans at all,” Rossiter said. “It’s a very, very lucky occasion for the folks that are on the boat, it’s very, very unusual to see them,”

It is not illegal to swim with whale sharks in Hawaii, if you do ever get the chance to see one, but experts say you should not touch them.