See Rare Footage of a Beautiful 30-Foot Whale Shark Feeding in Hawaii

Jade Eckardt
·2 min read
2

There's been a heck of a lot of shark footage in the news lately and it's been across the spectrum, ranging from sharks basking in their majestic beauty, to the down right terrible and terrifying.

Most sharks that make the news lately are the kind people fear, like tiger sharks and great whites, both apex predators known for being a potential threat to humans.

But not all sharks are predators, like whale sharks, which are very elusive gentle giants.  Lucky for us, a 30-foot whale shark was just filmed feeding in Hawaii near Kaneohe Bay on the east side of Oahu, and the footage below is absolutely awesome.

Maui Now captioned the post above:

"30-foot whale shark spotted off Kāneʻohe Bay"

The news source attributed the video to the University of Hawaii at Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB).

The video is just under two minutes long and shows absolutely gorgeous–and super up close–footage of the whale shark.

Shark researcher Mark Royer, who saw the whale shark first, says in the video:

“It is surprising. They are here more often than we think, however they are probably hard to come across because like I said, I didn’t see this animal until I hopped in the water.

The research team  didn't expect to see the animal. They saw seabirds flying over what they thought was just bait fish.

When the researchers dove into the water they got a big (literally) surprise–the 30-foot whale shark feeding on nehu, aka Hawaiian anchovy.

Royer explained:

“While all the small nehu were being drawn to the surface from all the predators, the whale shark was coming in and using its massive mouth to come up to the surface, open it, and then the suction would cause all the fish to funnel into its huge mouth."

According to Oceania, the whale shark is the largest fish in the world and grows up to 40 feet long, around the length of a school bus. Although they're known to occupy tropical oceans and spend time in Hawaii waters, they are rarely seen.

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