23-03-2025
‘Gentle giant' rarely seen in Southern California waters stuns boaters. See video
A whale-watching tour off Southern California got a close-up look at a passing basking shark, which are rarely seen in warmer waters, a video shows.
A Davey's Locker Whale Watching boat spotted the shark about 3 miles offshore between the Balboa and Newport Landing piers on Friday, March 21, an Instagram post said.
'Crossing paths with a basking shark in Southern California is very rare, but a couple have been reported by boats near Long Beach and San Diego recently,' the post said. 'We are overjoyed to have seen this special shark today.'
'Oh my gosh, he's filter-feeding!' someone says on the video.
'This is absolutely nuts, you guys,' the person says in footage obtained by KTLA.
The crew initially mistook the shark for an elephant seal, KTLA reported.
'Basking sharks are the second largest sharks in the world, measuring up to 30 feet as adults, about as long as a school bus,' according to the National Marine Sanctuaries website.
'Like whale sharks and unlike white sharks, these gentle giants filter feed on dense clumps of copepods, tiny crustaceans about the size of a grain of rice,' the agency said.
Sometimes mistaken for predatory sharks, basking sharks spend most of their time feeding near the surface, Oceana said. They are '/considered vulnerable to extinction.'
'These gentle giants are typically found in cooler waters, and are rarely spotted in waters off California, raising curiosity about why they were off the coast today in Newport Beach,' Jessica Rodriguez with Davey's Locker Whale Watching told KTLA.
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