On the eve of 2023, eyes were glued to the horizon at popular Mullaloo Beach to witness the last few moments of daylight for the year.
But one onlooker’s gaze was glued to a different spectacle, as drone operator Curtis Ramsay captured the incredible moment a huge shark — known by locals as Big T — swam across the water, just meters away from the shorefront.
“It still amazes me that something this big (2.5m), can be this close, to this many people and not one single person had the slightest clue that he was there”, the caption read.
Fortunately, celebrations went on without a hitch, with any potential screams of “shark!” instead replaced by the joyful “Happy New Year!” shrieks.
This isn’t the first time the 2.5-meter-long tiger shark has cruised close to swimmers. In fact, Trevor has been recorded frequenting Mullaloo Beach on multiple occasions — including a recent visit in December of last year.
The first drone-captured video shows the fin-tastic tiger cruising extremely close to swimmers at Mullaloo Beach.
A second video shows the 2.5m shark enjoying itself in what’s described as 25cm of water.
Research published by the University of Western Australia back in 2020 found that contrary to their reputation as swift and fierce predators, tiger sharks actually prefer life in the slow lane.
Tiger sharks are traditionally thought of as warm-water sharks but can migrate from the tropics to cool temperate waters — sometimes as far as Albany.