A man watching out for the safety of surfers at Australia’s iconic Bondi Beach forced the evacuation of the water Wednesday morning when he captured video of a great white shark attacking a fish well outside the break line but too close for comfort.
Jason Iggleden was scouting the waters with his drone when he spotted the great white shark swimming, at one point, an estimated 65 feet from the closest swimmer. Fortunately the 6-foot shark was more interested in fish.
“It had come up from the bottom and just launched, as you can see from the footage, and just hit what we think is a tuna,” Iggleden told 9News.
Iggleden immediately called lifeguards, who evacuated the water.
“We got everyone out of the water which is good because this guy [was] coming back in for another dig,” Iggleden told 9News.
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The great white shark is shown in the video chasing a school of salmon closer to shore.
Lifeguards eventually used a boat to herd the great white shark away from the shoreline and the beaches reopened mid-afternoon without incident.
Iggleden uses the Drone Shark App he created to monitor conditions and locate sharks, scouting the waters in the morning hours before heading off to work as a builder.
“The drone technology is way better than a man up in a tower looking for a fin,” Iggleden told The Guardian, according to News.com.au.com.
Iggleden told 9News, “On a couple of occasions over the last year we have potentially saved a couple of lives and that’s all I want out of all this.”
Photo courtesy of Jason Iggleden.
