A 20-foot long basking shark has been spotted in the waters off Cornwall, the first one of the year.
Wildlife spotters were delighted to see the filter feeder in Falmouth Bay over the weekend.
AK Wildlife Cruises runs sight-seeing trips around the coast, where dolphins and porpoises regularly roam, CornwallLive reports.
This weekend however was the first of the year for basking sharks, which migrate away from UK waters in the winter. They typically appear from April to June.
Captain Keith of AK Wildlife Cruises, said the sea was up to 12 degrees centigrade with many barrel jellyfish feeding on the plankton.
He said: “I was utterly convinced with all the recent signs there was every possibility there could well be some basking sharks lurking below.
“This is very early but the signs were there and sea temperatures are most certainly up. I would go so far as to say it’s positively ‘hot’ in fact for the time of year.
“So it’s all fingers and toes crossed this is a sign for more and more basking sharks returning once again to feed throughout the rich and sheltered waters of Falmouth Bay.”
He said the shark was a female and estimated to be around 20-foot long.
Ruth Williams, the conservation manager for Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Strandings Network, said sightings of basking sharks have been remarkably low in recent years.
She said: “We’ve had a few really bad years in terms of sightings although because basking sharks are a fish, they don’t have to come up to the surface. It may be they’re still there feeding but we’re just not seeing them.”
Despite feeding on tiny plankon, basking sharks are the second largest fish in the world after the whale shark.
