A huge shark has been sighted leaping from the water among a group of hundreds of common dolphins just off the coast of Pembrokeshire. This spectacular photograph of the rare thresher shark was taken from half a mile away off Milford Haven, by a photographer who was surveying dolphins in the outer Bristol Channel with the Sea Trust. Sea Trust director Cliff Benson, who was also on the boat, said: “It was a good sized animal. I would say its body was at least eight to ten feet long and its tail was another five to six feet long. It would have weighed at least 1,000lb.”
He added: “This was an extremely rare sighting. Unlike dolphins, which breathe air, sharks rarely come to the surface of the water. If you offered to pay someone £1,000 to get a photograph like this, they would not be able to.”
He added there had only been about six sightings in UK waters in the last year and many of those occurred when the sharks became caught in fishing nets.
The shark was seen on Monday afternoon, among a pod of several hundred dolphins – many of which had small calves. READ ON….