Close encounter with great white shark near Halifax sparks awe, disbelief
Geraldine Fernandez snapped the picture Wednesday from a cage atop a boat operated by Atlantic Shark Expeditions near Sambro, a rural fishing community in the Halifax Regional Municipality.
The male shark can be seen rising out of the water, staring almost directly at the camera, with his mouth agape and his teeth showing.
For some, the image may be menacing. But for Fernandez, who is studying to become a shark biologist, coming up close and personal with the shark was closer to love at first bite.
"The whole interaction was [one of] the most elegant, graceful and natural interactions that I have personally ever had with a shark," she said Friday in an interview with CBC's Mainstreet Halifax. "It was able to show its size and its power without even doing anything.
"People think they're these mindless animals that just attack, and, honestly, all it was doing was checking out the people, being a little curious, and I just got really lucky that day."
'Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity'
When the image was shared on social media, many of the people commenting thought it had to be the product of artificial intelligence.
But it came from a camera that Fernandez had attached to a pole. The shark was being monitored from a cage above, where she was stationed, and by divers underwater.
"This encounter was extremely unique," said Neil Hammerschlag, the founder and president of Atlantic Shark Expeditions.
His company regularly works with researchers like Fernandez. It also offers shark tours for civilians in Halifax and Yarmouth at various times of the year.
"The other great whites we've seen this season, and there's been a handful of them, they've all been really cautious," Hammerschlag said.
"This one stuck around for hours, they had no interest in the bait … was more interested in looking at the cage, rubbing up against the cage … and looking at what people were doing on the boat."
Fernandez has been obsessed with sharks since she was young.
As a summer research student with Dalhousie's Future of Marine Ecosystems Lab, she's been collecting data for a new method of monitoring sharks, which involves using a tool called a "shark bar" to measure the size of sharks in the water.
Her close encounter with the great white shark is more proof she's on the right track.
"It definitely felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," she said. "All it's done is just put more drive in me to continue my research and continue with shark exploration."
MORE TOP STORIES
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Bright Side: Underwater robot live stream mesmerizes Argentines
A robot is navigating the dark, cold depths of the South Atlantic seabed, streaming images of dazzling coral and previously unseen fish, while scientists provide live commentary on YouTube – and Argentines are captivated. It's the first time human eyes, albeit remotely, are witnessing this underwater oasis in real time, where the frigid, nutrient-rich Malvinas current meets the warm, salty waters of the Brazil Current. A robot explores the dark, cold, deep sea floor of the South Atlantic, transmitting images of vibrant coral and fish never seen before as scientists give live commentary via YouTube. And Argentines can't get enough of it. The Argentine-American scientific mission is for the first time exploring the Mar del Plata canyon, a submarine gorge which plunges nearly 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) deep, off the coast of the seaside resort of the same name. The awed conversations between scientists leading the expedition and the explanations they give to viewers allow the public a rare insight into the hidden wonders of marine biology. In one instance, the camera on the SuBastian underwater robot shows a weird-looking, little white animal. One of the scientists on the team can be heard asking her colleagues, "Do we want it?" "Yes, yes, we want it!" reply dozens of messages in the live stream chat before the image shows the suction device being activated to suck up the specimen for study. "Oh, I love these little creatures," says one user. "I'm obsessed!" comments another. "Don't take the little one away!" pleads a third. The live stream began a week ago and exceeded one million views per day since Thursday, when it also began to be broadcast on television. "There are cold-water corals with the same colors as those in the Caribbean. How can that be? At a depth of 3,000 meters!" Pablo Penchaszadeh, a marine biologist and painter who is on board the expedition as an artist, told AFP. Patrick Star The 20-day expedition "Underwater Oases of the Mar del Plata Canyon" involves 25 scientists -- most of them from the Argentine research agency CONICET. Part of the GEMPA deep sea study group, with support from the US Schmidt Ocean Institute, it will end on August 10. Aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's "Falkor (too)" ship, scientists remotely operate the robot, which can descend to a depth of 4,500 meters (14,700 feet). They collect biological samples with its robotic arms and other instruments, and send back high-definition images. "The fact that anyone can connect from home and see what we are seeing live is a unique opportunity," explains expedition leader Daniel Lauretta in a statement. "Science is no longer something distant or inaccessible, but becomes part of everyday life." This week, social media users were delighted when an orange starfish with two symmetrical bumps resembling buttocks appeared on the live stream. It quickly prompted comparisons with Patrick Star, from the popular animated series SpongeBob SquarePants. Memes circulated joking that "Patrick is Argentine," marine biology became a trending topic on social media, and the broadcast reached the screens of hundreds of thousands of captivated viewers. "I came to see the big-bottomed star, is it here?" asked one user upon entering the YouTube chat. Spectators also gave other sea creatures nicknames: a king crab was dubbed "Drag Queen," and sea cucumber was fondly called "Sweet Potato." 'Beacon of light' This is the first time that human eyes -- albeit remotely -- have seen this underwater oasis in real time, where the cold, nutrient-rich Malvinas current and warm, salty Brazil current converge. The confluence is "one of the most energetic regions in our global Ocean," according to the website of the Schmidt Institute, with the temperature difference creating an area teeming with marine wildlife and flora. "We are already seeing incredible things: animals that have never been recorded in this area, underwater landscapes that look like something from another planet, and behaviors that surprise even the most experienced scientists," said Lauretta. But funding for such expeditions is under threat in Argentina. CONICET, the government's scientific research arm, has been severely underfunded by libertarian President Javier Milei, who has implemented draconian cuts to public spending with his infamous "chainsaw." Its budget fell by 21 percent last year, salaries have plummeted by 35 percent since the Milei took office in December 2023, and the cuts have led to an exodus of scientists. As a result, in between "oohs" and "aahs" of wonder, messages of support are flooding the live stream's chat: "Long live Conicet!". "Seeing people being passionate about their job is attractive," said Tomas Atilio Luppi, a biologist at the CONICET-affiliated marine and coastal research institute in Mar del Plata, who is not directly involved in the campaign. "This is happening at a very difficult time," he told AFP of the popular broadcast. "Science is in a very complicated position, both financially and in terms of support and human resources." "The fact that this craze is happening is like a beacon of light." (FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
This Webb photo didn't just see galaxies. It changed their place in time.
A James Webb Space Telescope study is setting the record straight on the ages of some known ancient galaxies, which have turned out to be much older and farther away in space than previously thought. Webb, a joint observatory of NASA and its European and Canadian counterparts, took a fresh look at a piece of the sky made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope's ultra-deep field view more than 20 years ago. At that time, Hubble's long-exposure image was extremely ambitious: Scientists pointed the telescope at a seemingly starless area, unsure what photons they'd collect. In the end, that ultra-deep field image was "found to be anything but blank," Webb researchers said, "containing thousands of distant galaxies." Now with Webb, this patch of sky is revealing more about the universe — even shuffling the cosmic timeline. Known as the MIRI Deep Imaging Survey, the project involved the Webb telescope's mid-infrared instrument, which detects light wavelengths invisible to the naked eye. The new findings from the survey are published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. With Webb, astronomers are able to observe the faint infrared glow from ancient stars and the structures they formed. The telescope trained on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field area for 100 hours, according to the research, including 41 hours with one particular filter. The resulting image picked up dim signals from galaxies when the universe was barely a few hundred million years old — a mere whippersnapper. To understand a deep field space image, think of it as you would a core sample taken from the ground, collecting older rocks and soil the farther down you go: The image is a tiny-but-distant slice of space, revealing cosmic history by cutting across billions of light-years, each deeper layer revealing an earlier time. "To our knowledge, this constitutes the longest single-filter exposure obtained with (Webb) of an extragalactic field as of yet," the authors wrote. The project, dubbed MIDIS for short, found nearly 2,500 light sources, most of them distant galaxies. About 1,000 now have revised distance estimates, based on how their light has shifted. Webb was built to observe an early period known as "cosmic dawn," between 100 million to 1 billion years after the Big Bang, detecting light at invisible infrared wavelengths. In short, light gets stretched — or "redshifted" — over time and distance by the expansion of the universe. Those infrared waves can also pierce through the prevalent gas and dust in space that could otherwise obscure far and naturally weaker light sources. In one case, the project found that a galaxy previously believed to be 11.8 billion years old was closer to 13.3 billion — pushing its origins back to when the universe was perhaps just 450 million years old. That puts the galaxy squarely in the first wave of galaxies formed. Other objects in the MIDIS image reveal a different story: hundreds of red galaxies, some of which got their color because they're dusty or contain mature, cooler stars. Either way, the results show Webb's MIRI instrument can be a powerful tool for uncovering missed or misidentified ancient galaxies. Not even NASA's Spitzer, a now-retired infrared space telescope, saw with this level of clarity. That bodes well for researchers looking into how the universe evolved from birthing the first galaxies to a time when star and supermassive black hole formation seemed to peak. "MIDIS surpasses preflight expectations," the authors wrote. "Deep MIRI imaging has great potential to characterise the galaxy population from cosmic noon to dawn." Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
Patrick Star and 'Drag Queen' crab: underwater robot live stream captivates Argentines
A robot explores the dark, cold, deep sea floor of the South Atlantic, transmitting images of vibrant coral and fish never seen before as scientists give live commentary via YouTube. And Argentines can't get enough of it. The Argentine-American scientific mission is for the first time exploring the Mar del Plata canyon, a submarine gorge which plunges nearly 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) deep, off the coast of the seaside resort of the same name. The awed conversations between scientists leading the expedition and the explanations they give to viewers allow the public a rare insight into the hidden wonders of marine biology. In one instance, the camera on the SuBastian underwater robot shows a weird-looking, little white animal. One of the scientists on the team can be heard asking her colleagues, "Do we want it?" "Yes, yes, we want it!" reply dozens of messages in the live stream chat before the image shows the suction device being activated to suck up the specimen for study. "Oh, I love these little creatures," says one user. "I'm obsessed!" comments another. "Don't take the little one away!" pleads a third. The live stream began a week ago and exceeded one million views per day since Thursday, when it also began to be broadcast on television. "There are cold-water corals with the same colors as those in the Caribbean. How can that be? At a depth of 3,000 meters!" Pablo Penchaszadeh, a marine biologist and painter who is on board the expedition as an artist, told AFP. - Patrick Star - The 20-day expedition "Underwater Oases of the Mar del Plata Canyon" involves 25 scientists -- most of them from the Argentine research agency CONICET. Part of the GEMPA deep sea study group, with support from the US Schmidt Ocean Institute, it will end on August 10. Aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's "Falkor (too)" ship, scientists remotely operate the robot, which can descend to a depth of 4,500 meters (14,700 feet). They collect biological samples with its robotic arms and other instruments, and send back high-definition images. "The fact that anyone can connect from home and see what we are seeing live is a unique opportunity," explains expedition leader Daniel Lauretta in a statement. "Science is no longer something distant or inaccessible, but becomes part of everyday life." This week, social media users were delighted when an orange starfish with two symmetrical bumps resembling buttocks appeared on the live stream. It quickly prompted comparisons with Patrick Star, from the popular animated series SpongeBob SquarePants. Memes circulated joking that "Patrick is Argentine," marine biology became a trending topic on social media, and the broadcast reached the screens of hundreds of thousands of captivated viewers. "I came to see the big-bottomed star, is it here?" asked one user upon entering the YouTube chat. Spectators also gave other sea creatures nicknames: a king crab was dubbed "Drag Queen," and sea cucumber was fondly called "Sweet Potato." - 'Beacon of light' - This is the first time that human eyes -- albeit remotely -- have seen this underwater oasis in real time, where the cold, nutrient-rich Malvinas current and warm, salty Brazil current converge. The confluence is "one of the most energetic regions in our global Ocean," according to the website of the Schmidt Institute, with the temperature difference creating an area teeming with marine wildlife and flora. "We are already seeing incredible things: animals that have never been recorded in this area, underwater landscapes that look like something from another planet, and behaviors that surprise even the most experienced scientists," said Lauretta. But funding for such expeditions is under threat in Argentina. CONICET, the government's scientific research arm, has been severely underfunded by libertarian President Javier Milei, who has implemented draconian cuts to public spending with his infamous "chainsaw." Its budget fell by 21 percent last year, salaries have plummeted by 35 percent since the Milei took office in December 2023, and the cuts have led to an exodus of scientists. As a result, in between "oohs" and "aahs" of wonder, messages of support are flooding the live stream's chat: "Long live Conicet!". "Seeing people being passionate about their job is attractive," said Tomas Atilio Luppi, a biologist at the CONICET-affiliated marine and coastal research institute in Mar del Plata, who is not directly involved in the campaign. "This is happening at a very difficult time," he told AFP of the popular broadcast. "Science is in a very complicated position, both financially and in terms of support and human resources." "The fact that this craze is happening is like a beacon of light." bur-lm/dg/db/aks/st Solve the daily Crossword
