Whale shark seen off Palm Beach coast
PALM BEACH COUNTY – People on a charter fishing boat out of Palm Beach County were treated to a rare sight when the largest fish in the sea, a whale shark, playfully nuzzled up to their vessel.
It happened Friday a couple of miles offshore of Juno Beach in about 110 feet of water on a charter trip by Blue Heron Fishing. Those on the boat estimated the whale shark was 25 to 30 feet long.
One of the customers on the boat posted cellphone video of the encounter.
“Get your cameras out, enjoy it here for a moment, sports fans,” one person is heard exclaiming.
Blue Heron Fishing later posted a picture of the whale shark on its Facebook page with the caption, “Whale shark!! Amazing! Let’s go fishing!!”
Despite their size, whale sharks are considered the gentle giants of the ocean.
When fully grown they can rival the size of a public transit bus and weigh more than 20 tons, according to National Geographic. But they are “filter feeders” who mainly eat plankton by passively jutting out their big jaws and filtering everything in their path.
Whale sharks, which can live for 70 years or longer, are found in all tropical oceans of the world. The are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature because of the impacts of fisheries, by-catch losses and vessel strikes combined with their long lifespan and late maturation.
The whale shark seen Friday is not the only one that has been spotted in the waters off Palm Beach County. A little more than a year ago, a woman on a 22-foot-long boat posted Facebook video of a whale shark — bigger than the boat she was in — “feeding on the surface like a giant vacuum cleaner.”