A SHARK was spotted off the north coast of Devon by terrified beachgoers.
The beast was seen circling a fishing boat near Watermouth Castle in Ilfracombe.
Katy Nelson, 22, first sounded the alarm when she saw the animal’s fin emerge from the water.
She had been on the boat when she spotted the unidentified shark and quickly captured a video.
Footage briefly shows the fin of the shark close to the boat before it dips beneath the surface again.
Katy, from Aberystwyth, Wales, said: “It was just the one but it was really big – huge!
“It was there for quite a while actually and my partner saw it first.
“They turned the boat around and it was going in the same direction as the boat for a bit.
“It was a bit unnerving – it kept disappearing and reappearing!
“The organisers thought it was a Thresher shark, but we thought the fin looked vaguely like a Hammerhead shark.
“We hadn’t caught any fish at that point so it made it worth it!”
Earlier this month a 24ft basking shark washed up on a popular beach in Ayrshire.
It was bigger than a tractor and had a rope tangled through its mouth and around its tail.
The basking shark, sometimes known as a “Toothless Bruce,” is the second largest fish in our oceans.
At first, it was thought to be a whale, until Yolanda McCall, from Ayrshire, Scotland, contacted British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDLMR) and Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) teams.
The whopping shark was sadly pronounced dead at the scene on Maidens Beach on Sunday evening.
Yolanda said: “It was tangled in a long loop of rope, in its mouth and caught around its tail.
“The creature was bobbing around in the water and we couldn’t tell if it was dead or alive.
“I wanted to try to help it, if it was alive and floundering, so I put on a wetsuit and got in the water to check.
“Sadly it was dead, but it looked very complete, a recent death. Maybe it got tired trying to free itself.”
Footage of the sighting was also posted online by Ellie MacLennan, who is doing a PhD focussing on marine life entanglement.
She urged the public to report sightings to the Scottish Marine Animal Streanding Scheme (SMASS).
Ms MacLennan wrote on Facebook: “[SMASS] receive very few strandings reports involving basking sharks but this species is known to be vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear and marine debris, though there is no way of knowing the source of this rope.
“If you find a dead stranded whale, dolphin, porpoise, seal, shark or turtle please report this to @smass.scotland.
“We can learn a huge amount from each and every case, not just about why the animal died but how it lived too which can give insight into what’s going on in the wider marine environment and any emerging threats.
“Thank you to Yolanda McCall for reporting this case and for allowing us to share her video.”
Ms MacLennan has a BSc (Hons) in Conservation Biology from the University of Aberdeen, and an MSc in International Marine Environmental Consultancy from Newcastle University.
