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Old 02-08-2014, 08:47 PM
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Heads up, the northbound blacktip shark migration is back for 2014.



Photographer Steve Huskisson posted the following image from Juno Beach and comments on his Facebook page today.

"Waves, surfers, paddleboards and sharks... Yes sharks. Headed over to walkway 36 and met up with Lori Griffith and Jeffrey Barron Biege to shoot some surfing. The Spinner Sharks were plentiful and I was content on shooting surfers until Lori said "get a shot with a shark in it..." Last time I take on that challenge. I stood, fixated on the ocean beyond the surfers waiting and watching shark after shark to my left and right jumping. Captured plenty of after splashes of the sharks. Finally, one decided to jump where I was waiting. Here you go Lori, your shark..... No photoshop, just patience and a lot of shutter clicks of missed sharks. More of today's surf & paddle boards from Juno Beach, Coral Cove and Walkway 36 to come. "
https://www.facebook.com/shuskisson


Some related comments from the Sunsentinel:

"South Florida Is About To Be Swarmed By Sharks
Sun Sentinel | By David Fleshler
Posted: 11/28/2013 3:55 am EST | Updated: 01/27/2014 5:59 am EST

Thousands of blacktip and spinner sharks will swim into South Florida in the next few weeks in an annual migration that yields spectacular aerial videos and occasional beach closures.

Up to 15,000 have been counted on a single day off Palm Beach County by scientists from Florida Atlantic University, and these just represent the ones visible from one flight along the coast. Like birds and manatees, the sharks come south for the winter, arriving in December and January, with numbers peaking in late January and early February.

"When they're there, you can walk on them," said Josh Jorgensen, of Singer Island, director of the Blacktip Challenge, a five-day catch-and-release tournament along Florida's east coast that tags sharks for scientists. "I remember one time last year there must have been 500 that swam by in an hour, endless blacktips. They were 20 or 30 feet off the beach."

The sharks swim as far south as southern Broward or northern Miami-Dade County, said Stephen Kajiura, associate professor of biology at FAU, who has studied the migration. They head north in March, reaching as far as North Carolina.

Scientists say the danger to people is low, despite scary aerial videos that show vast swarms of sharks within yards of clueless swimmers. Blacktips and spinners, which typically reach lengths of five or six feet, eat mullet, grouper, snook and other fish, nothing as large as a human being.

"Those sharks are 100 or 200 yards away from thousands of bathers and they show no interest in them at all," said Brent Winner, research scientist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission"

Continued at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/1...n_4353745.html

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