Warwick Catchpole was out fishing off Hen Island in Northland on Sunday, January 7, 2024, when a great white shark began circling his boat, keeping it up for over an hour even as Mr Catchpole continued fishing.
Video / Supplied
The animal “chewed” on the boat’s motor and burley pot while the stunned boaties watched the encounter in awe.
“It was nice and calm and the water, the visibility - real clear,” fisherman Warwick Catchpole told the Herald.
“We [with friend Bernie Diver] were just doing our thing, fishing for some snapper, then this shark caught us by surprise and just slid up by the rear of the boat. I said to my mate, ‘grab your camera’.”
Catchpole sounded coy when he recounted Sunday morning’s experience to the Herald, saying the shark’s “calmness was probably the most interesting thing about it. It was very chilled”.
The video Catchpole took from off Hen Island has caused a stir online, with keen fishers wowed by the close encounter, identifying it as a juvenile great white, but speculating about injuries it appeared to have.
“It was quite interesting, when you saw it up close you could see it had numerous scars from nose to tail and all over its body. So it’s certainly been through quite an ordeal,” Catchpole said.
“There were lots of bait fish and things in the area, but it wasn’t interested in them at all. It didn’t display any aggression.
“We were still able to pull a couple of fish in while the shark was swimming around. It wasn’t interested in those either, which I thought was quite unusual.”
A shark expert, the Department of Conservation’s marine technical adviser Clinton Duffy, confirmed it was a juvenile great white and agreed with Catchpole the animal appeared it had “interacted with a net”.
Duffy said: “The videos show typical cautious investigatory behaviour of a great white. They naturally investigate objects at the surface as they often scavenge on floating whale carcasses.”
Catchpole said he had never seen anything like it.
'It was stunning, just stunning,' fisherman Warwick Catchpole said of his encounter with a great white shark. Photo / Warwick Catchpole
“You do see sharks around the place, particularly over summer, but I certainly hadn’t come across a great white before, and not in water that shallow,” he said.
He said the shark kept swimming around the boat for more than an hour, “just content swimming doing semi-circles”.
Catchpole said he wasn’t concerned when he first saw the shark approach, especially considering how calm it appeared.
“Fortunately, we were in a reasonable-sized boat, so that helped [calm any nerves]. We first thought it may have been a mako - they jump, so you know, we thought ‘let’s not get too friendly’.
“It was just so cool and calm. It had a bit of a chew on the moor and it had a chew on the burley pot. That was the extent of its activity. Apart from that, it was just cruising around.
Spate of recent sightings over summer sees woman bitten, popular beaches evacuated
A spate of shark sightings and encounters have already made headlines this summer, including one incident where a 21-year-old woman was attacked in Southland and a panic in Auckland when swimmers were urged out of the water with a shark nearby.
Lifeguards recorded more than 40 first-hand sightings of sharks across two regions in a fortnight, Surf Life Saving New Zealand said last Tuesday.
Marine scientist Riley Elliott told RNZ the El Nino weather system could be behind the sightings, as the climate shift meant warm, fish-rich waters were just now coming into shore, and with it, more sharks.
“This summer is quite different to last summer in that it’s cooler water, the ocean’s a little bit slower behind in its productivity because of the shift to El Nino,” Elliott said.
“We are starting to see that warm productive water come in, more and more fish coming in closer to shore, and with that, shark sightings.”
Elliot said it was worth nothing that while warmer, productive water was more inviting to sharks, there were also more people around beaches through summer to see them.
The mother of the 21-year-old who was attacked in an estuary at Riverton, Southland on December 16 last year told the Herald her daughter remained in hospital, “slowly” recovering from surgery.
Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.
