Massive Rare Shark Circles Fishing Boat Off NJ Coast

A group of anglers fishing offshore for tuna were treated to a rare sighting on Saturday when a rare whale shark circled the boat they were fishing aboard.

The Jamaica, a 125-foot vessel that sails from Brielle, was fishing at the Hudson Canyon for tuna on Saturday when a whale shark surfaced and circled the boat.

Video of the encounter shows the massive whale shark swimming around the boat. You can see it below.

The boat had anchored up in the canyon, 97 miles from Manasquan Inlet, about 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Capt. Erik Bogan said, and had stayed anchored through the night.

As the fishermen on board tried to catch the tuna they were seeing on the boat's fishfinder, the whale shark surfaced.

"We saw it first come down from the bow of the boat portside about 7 a.m.," said Capt. Erik, who was running the boat with his father, Capt. Howard Bogan.

The massive shark stayed around the boat, cruising back and forth for about 45 minutes, he said.

Whale sharks are the largest fish species in the world, reaching up to 40 feet or more, according to National Geographic, making them as long as a school bus.

The only ocean inhabitant larger is the blue whale, which can reach more than 100 feet in length, the Natural History Museum notes.

They can weigh more than 20 tons and have an average lifespan of 70 years, though some live more than 100 years, according to the Ocean Conservancy.

They are docile sharks and filter feeders, meaning they open their mouths wide and suck in their food, rather than biting and attacking their prey. They then force the water out through their gills, filtering out the food that includes phytoplankton, crab larva and krill, along with small fish.

A 20-foot whale shark can filter more than 162,000 gallons of water per hour, according to a study published in Science Direct.

The whale shark is primarily found in waters that are 70 degrees or warmer, but have been spotted in colder water as far north as the Bay of Fundy in Canada, according to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.

The water was 70.3 degrees in the Hudson Canyon on Saturday, Capt. Erik said.

"While we have seen them on a few occurrences, it is a rare sighting in our waters," Capt. Erik wrote on the Jamaica's Facebook page.

"I personally have seen three," he said, "and my dad said he has seen them seven times in 45 years" of offshore fishing.

While sharks can disrupt fishing, Capt. Erik said that was not the case with the whale shark.

"We had our first tuna bites at 7:26 a.m., right when the shark was next to the boat," he said.

There were no issues with it tangling in the anglers' lines, Capt. Erik said.

The whale shark did go deeper a few times and resurface, but it stayed plenty clear and the fishermen were paying attention to where it was to keep their lines away.

The Woods Hole researchers say the spotted patterns on whale sharks are unique to each shark and make it possible for scientists to identify them individually.

While they spend most of their time feeding at the surface, whale sharks tagged off Indonesia in the Indo-Pacific Ocean have been found to dive as far as 6,000 feet deep, Woods Hole reported, where about 75 percent of the world's whale shark population lives.

The Atlantic Ocean is home to the remaining 25 pecent of the whale shark population, Woods Hole researchers say.

Read more about the Jamaica's fishing trips, which can last for a half-day to nearly two days depending on the species being sought.