How big do you think this basking shark is?
Sep 30 2022
Recently our drone footage of a basking shark approaching our boat casued a bit of a stir on the internet! This short video went unexpectedly viral on TikTok, gaining 16.5 million views at the time of writing.
With many comments seeming to think we were under attack, or that our boat might sink! For those who aren’t familiar with our company, there are a couple of clues in the name – we are basking shark scotland, and specialise in wildlife trips watching these incredible creatures. While seeing a large shark swimming up to a boat may look suprising to some, we see these plankton eating giants regularly during the summer.
This summer Shane was flying the drone as a large basking shark approached boat, he captured this unique sequence. It was a really big shark, which was obvious to those on board seeing it up close. However, the drone does give us a very different view, and enables some accurate comparison of length. Basking sharks are recorded of growing up to 12.2m, but you’ll see 10-12m written down as their maximum length. Unfortunately after an intensive period of hunting over the last century, numbers have been significantly reduced from their pre-hunting days. Basking sharks are slow growing and take a long time to mature, so we don’t often see sharks approaching the 12 metre mark.
The perspective of the footage does make the boat look a little small next to the shark. Our boat is approx 12m long so how big do you think the shark is?
Our team estimated this shark to be about 8 metres in length, still an impressively large animal, and the largest shark species to be found in Scottish waters. It goes to show the importance of perspective when we look at camera angles!
Feel free to share the joke of we’re gonna need a bigger boat! Here’s the links to the posts on social media if you want to share or leave a comment on how big you think it is!
