Shark spotted close to Ōtama Beach, Coromandel, as swimmers flee

Beachgoers at a Coromandel beach were sent running from the water after a shark was spotted only 20m away from the shore.

Aucklander Jeff Ah Koy was walking down to the bay with a friend last Wednesday when he saw people running from Ōtama Beach 20km north of Whitianga.

“I had my drone with me and so I thought to launch the drone, just to see what was in the water,” Ah Koy said.

The dramatic footage captured by the drone shows the shark slowly making its way up and down the bay. Frightened onlookers watch from the shore after having their swim interrupted by the massive fish.

Ah Koy said a pregnant woman was frantically running up and down the sand, preventing those keen for a swim from joining the shark in the bay.

The shark was filmed from a drone at Ōtama Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula.

“She was kind of like policing the area making sure that everyone knew not to go in the water,” Ah Koy said.

After the footage was posted to social media, others came forward sharing their experience with the shark on the same day.

“We were there [and I] could see it by the rocks,” one person wrote.

“You know when someone pregnant runs the distance of the beach it’s time to get out of the water.”

The shark had the water to itself after beachgoers fled in fear.

This comes after a spate of shark sightings around the top of the North Island.

On January 7, a boatie off Northland’s Hen and Chicken Islands faced an encounter with a 4m great white shark that circled his boat for over an hour.

Fisherman Warwick Catchpole told the Herald the animal “chewed” on the boat’s motor and burley pot while the stunned boaties watched the encounter in awe.

“It was surreal.”

Surf Life Saving eastern manager Chaz Gibbons-Campbell said in the past two weeks it had had 42 sightings across Coromandel and Bay of Plenty.

“That’s from lifeguards seeing sharks swimming by, and most of them are on the small-size range, so sort of under a metre and a half.”

Last month, a Southland woman was attacked by a shark while wading through a South Island estuary.

The 21-year-old suffered a significant leg wound in a late-night attack while wading in knee-deep water about 2am.

Southland police said the woman was walking through the water near the Riverton rugby grounds when she was bitten.

“The culprit is possibly a sevengill shark, which is present in the estuary. The time of day is a possible factor,” police said.

Rachel Maher is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. She has worked for the Herald since 2022.