HUNGER GAMES: Chilling video shows hundreds of sharks in feeding frenzy off Louisiana coast
VENICE, LOUISIANA: A shocking video shows hundreds of hungry sharks devouring a tuna "bait ball" beneath a fishing boat off the coast of Louisiana as the fisherman on board watch in disbelief. Dillion May and his girlfriend Kaitlyn Dix were fishing on a friend's boat in the hopes of catching some yellowfish tuna when all of a sudden, swarms of ravenous sharks encircled their boat off the coast of Venice, Louisiana.
In an effort to catch some fish, May drove over to the area where the feeding frenzy was going on, roughly 15 miles off the coast. There, in the midst of the ocean's violent waves, he saw hundreds of sharks chase down a menhaden bait ball before grabbing hold of the fish and frantically devouring them.
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'Never seen anything like it'
Several of the fish can be seen in video footage darting frantically beneath the boat in an effort to avoid the shark's potentially lethal jaws. In the video, the windbreaker-clad young fisherman was in awe and didn't appear to mind the chaos despite being drenched. "We saw it was sharks on a bait ball ...never seen anything like it ... no shrimp boats were in sight either!," he said, as per Daily Mail.
May claimed that at first, he believed the mayhem in the ocean to be a tuna boil, a term for a feeding frenzy that causes the water to appear to be boiling. But as he neared, he saw what was actually going on. "By the time we got there the sharks had found the bait ball and pushed them up against the boat to feast on them," he said.
Sharks and Menhadens
Although the kind of sharks that were present in the sea remains unknown, some common species found in Louisiana waters include spinners, hammerheads, bull sharks, and bull tips. The menhaden that the sharks were feasting on, also known as Pogy, Fatback, and Mossbunker, is a member of the herring family. They are found in coastal and estuary waters from Florida to Nova Scotia. During the spring, summer, and fall, menhaden often swim in large schools not far from the surface of the water. Their peak season is from December to February.
