Lake Conjola in Australia is a popular holiday destination known for waterskiing, kayaking and fishing, but not great white sharks.
The appearance of a juvenile great white shark in the coastal lake in New South Wales came as a huge surprise to those who witnessed the event.
Leon Hallam recorded video of the shark swimming along the shoreline and posted it on Facebook.
Leonardo Guida, a shark scientist with the Australian Marine Conservation Society, told Yahoo Australia: It is a “white shark. No doubt about it. Pretty bloody incredible.”
“Here we see a white shark in the early stages of its life in a coastal area,” Guida told Yahoo Australia. “And to be able to see that by standing on the ground and looking down is an experience very few people will have.
“People pay thousands of dollars to go see these animals from inside cages, and the chances of seeing them isn’t guaranteed. Yet here in coastal NSW looking in the water, and there’s this beautiful juvenile white shark just peacefully cruising by.”
Lake Conjola, classified as a barrier estuary, is 186 miles from Port Stephens, one of two nursery sites for great white sharks on the east coast of Australia, the other being Corner Inlet in eastern Victoria.
Guida told Yahoo Australia he believes that the shark likely followed the salmon run to the south coast and into the lake.
“It’s just the ocean working as it should,” he told Yahoo Australia. “And we’re very fortunate in this instance to be able to see something like that.”
