Shark sighting off beach in South Jersey caught on video

but we begin with a site that for many is too close for comfort two shark sightings just days apart at a popular South Jersey summer destination yeah this is video of one of those instances at Cape May point you can see just how close that shark was to shore the beach packed at the time with kids and their families lots of screaming New Jersey correspondent Trish Hartman did a deep dive into the story so to speak today Trish these specific kinds of sharks are not typically dangerous we should note to humans that's right Brian Sarah we don't know exactly what kind of shark was here at cap mpoint yesterday but the type of shark that was likely here normally eats small fish and crustations not humans still the people that were in the ocean quickly made their way out onto the sand giving that shark plenty of space lifeguards say they train for situations like this that typically happen about once a year it was around 300 p.m. Monday when beachgoers in Kate May Point noticed something in the water I just saw a dolphin well I thought it was a dolphin while dolphins are common here no it wasn't a dolphin we saw two fins pop up really close in and we came down we thought it was maybe two sharks but when we got a closer look it was one long 6ot shark and that was enough to send people running for the sand look at that it's a shark man yeah the sharks are always out here we deal with we swim with the sharks every day again most of the time you just don't see them Kate Mayo Beach Patrol Chief Ben Swan says this tends to happen once a summer and his lifeguards are prepared the guards are trained to look at out for whatever whatever may be in the water any sort of threats in the area uh if there is sharks our response would just be to clear the water for the meantime a few miles off the coast of Cape May another shark discovery which marine biologist Carly Dunn found very exciting in the past week we've had two different sightings of basking sharks right off of Kate May uh this is kind of unusual because basking sharks tend to be pelagic species so they spend more of their time out in deeper water offshore but some may find these sightings unsettling according to tracking shars.com over the past 5 years there have been an average of 40 unprovoked shark attacks per year in the US dun says sharks are known to follow their food source and are not typically looking for humans just take it as a really neat sighting they're following their fish and a sign of a healthy ecosystem they're keeping everything else in check in our area so what could that shark have been here yesterday the beach Patrol Chief say they see a lot of sand tigers or Sand Bar sharks the marine biologist we spoke to said it even could have been a hammerhead shark either way another reason to swim close to a lifeguard they are usually on the lookout we're live in Kate Mayo Trish Hartman Channel 6 Action News Brian Sarah yeah sharks live in the ocean but farther out is best they do TR thanks so much