A group of boaters in Scituate, Massachusetts – about 20 miles south of Boston – had a very close encounter with a great white shark recently.
Intense footage filmed by Jackson Roberts shows the shark approaching the boat that Roberts was riding on with friends. The shark circles the vessel and pops its head out to inspect it further.
Roberts told Storyful he and his two friends were observing great whites feeding on a whale carcass when the shark decided to check him and his crew out.
“One of the juvenile white sharks took an interest in our boat and approached it a few times before moving back to the whale,” he said.
What are great white sharks?
There are many sharks off the coast of Massachusetts but the one you hear about the most often, white sharks – also known as great white sharks – are named for their white underbellies, even though their topsides come in grays and browns, according to National Geographic .
They can "rocket through the water at speeds approaching 35 miles an hour and (have) a bite force of up to 1.8 metric tons ." They can live more than 70 years and can grow to up to 21 feet long. They can weigh up to 4,500 pounds.
How many great whites sharks have been detected near Massachusetts?
In 2023, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy tagged 34 new white sharks off the coast.
In 2022, 134 previously tagged sharks were detected by 69 receivers concentrated along the Outer Cape, where the sharks are most populous, into Cape Cod Bay and then along the beaches of the South Shore and as far north as Cape Ann.
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy detected a sharp increase in the number of previously tagged sharks in the preceding years: 130 in 2021, 116 in 2020, 99 in 2019 and 63 in 2018.
David R. Smith of The Patriot Ledger and Seth Jacobson of the USA Today Network contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: 'You don't want to touch him': Listen as boaters react to great white shark off Scituate
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