Dad-of-two walks into water to check if it's safe for his kids and discovers something lurking in the shallows
GASCOYNE, WEST AUSTRALIA: A traveling family captured an incredible video of the moment a young father discovers a dangerous threat while checking to see if an Australian beach was safe enough for his kids to swim at. Since May 2021, BJ and Janelle have been traveling across Australia full-time with their two young children, so they are well-versed in the occasionally perilous terrain that is Down Under.
BJ stepped up to the surface of the idyllic crystal blue waters in Shark Bay, Western Australia, and shook his foot, creating ripples in the waves, in a video uploaded on their Instagram. Suddenly, a shadow formed in front of him and swam closer, showing a gigantic tiger shark thrashing around in the shallows.
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''We were headed in for a swim and spotted a fin so my husband splashed a little to see if it was aggressive and it came straight at him,'' said Janelle, according to a MailOnline article. ''We decided not to swim with the kids there.'' While sharks are abundant in Shark Bay, they are not normally so close to the shoreline, according to the family. Despite the sunny day and beautiful water, their followers were taken aback by how difficult it was to identify the shark at first.
The CSIRO anticipated that up to 12,802 great white sharks, including juveniles, might be active near eastern Australia in 2020. The population of Western Australia is believed to be substantially smaller, at roughly 2,250 people. That figure is likely to have risen since then.
However, your probability of getting bitten by a shark in a year is still less than one in a million, which is significantly smaller than the danger of drowning while swimming without sharks. In 2021, six shark attacks were documented in Western Australia, with one death. There were seven assaults the previous year, with three persons killed. Last year, there were 12 shark attacks in Australia, three of which were deadly. Global warming, shifting fish populations and migrations, and even 'rogue' sharks have all been implicated for an increase in sharks biting people.