Watch: Shark Spotted Swimming Very Close To Shore In Sliema
A shark has been spotted swimming just by the shore in Sliema.
In a video shared Nikolche Nestoroski on the Facebook group Expats Malta moment ago, the large fish can be seen swimming very close to Qui-Si-Sana, seemingly feeding on something.
According to some comments, the shark might’ve ended up so close to the shore because it was trying to catch up with a tuna carcass which had drifted off from the nearby fish farms. This has however not been able to be confirmed for now.
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Meanwhile, as scores of people continue to try and guess what kind of shark it is from the short and blurry video, Lovin Malta reached out to prominent naturalist Arnold Sciberras, who offered his own guess: a large mako shark.
“I’ve observed half a dozen in Maltese waters,” Sciberras told Lovin Malta. “They’re known to occur in Maltese waters, particularly the shortfin mako, which is the only mako species regularly found in the Mediterranean Sea. They usually live in deep waters off the continental shelf, but occasionally closer to shore. They’re fast-swimming, active predators known to leap from the water.”
While Sciberras could not say for sure that the shark in the video is a mako, he did say it seemed like it could very well be the case. “In Malta and across the EU, landing or selling mako sharks is currently prohibited due to their declining populations,” he warned. “Many local fishermen release them if caught accidentally.”
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