Siesta Key, Florida -- Nothing clears the beach like someone screaming "shark.” It happened at Siesta Key Beach on Saturday when a shark stuck around for an hour.
Esther Forestandi was sunning on Siesta Key Beach when the screams startled her. She says, “They started screaming 'shark, shark.' ”
On the sandbar 50 feet off shore, a shark was thrashing in the water. Forestandi grabbed her cell phone and started recording. She says the shark stayed there for an hour.
“You see him on the sandbar, you could see the whole body out acting like a stalker, moving, shaking all side to side,” says Forestandi.
“It’s really kicking hard …. it’s pursuing something right there.”
After studying Forestandi's minute-long video, Dr. Bob Hueter, Mote’s senior scientist and director for Mote Marine Laboratory’s Center for Shark Research, identified the shark as a young great hammerhead between 6 to 8 feet long.
Hueter says, “This is the beginning of tarpon season. They like to come into shallow water go after tarpon other fish.”
Great hammerheads can grow up to 20 feet. The one mounted at Mote Aquarium is 14.5-feet long and weighed nearly 1,300 hundred pounds ,the largest caught using rod and reel. The great hammerhead spotted on Siesta Key is half its size.
Hueter says beachgoers did the right thing and got out of the water but don’t need to be too concerned when spotting a great hammerhead.
“They’re impressive and look eerie but are not that dangerous to people,” says Hueter. He adds, “Seeing an animal like that swimming up and down the beach is a good sign for the health of the ocean. We don’t have trash on the beach, don’t have red tide, it’s a good thing.”
Forestandi is at the beach every week she’s an avid swimmer. She says, “I love the water. I hope the shark don’t like me.”
Dr. Hueter says to avoid sharks it’s best to swim from 9am to 5pm, don't swim where people are fishing or there’s any fish activity and don't wear any bright colored bathing suits or shiny jewelry---a shark may confuse you for tarpon or other food source.
