Great white chomps on researcher’s underwater video camera

CHATHAM, Mass. – The top shark scientist in Massachusetts has shot hundreds of great white shark videos, but for the first time one has tried to take a bite of his camera.

Greg Skomal, a researcher with the Massachusetts Division of Marine and Fisheries, was tagging great whites with a crew from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy on Monday off Cape Cod when a shark chomped on his GoPro.

The video posted on the agency’s Facebook page shows the shark approaching the camera attached to a pole, biting down for about a second and providing a close-up of the inside of its mouth.

Skomal told New England Cable News the exploratory bite was “unusual behaviour” and the 11-foot female shark easily could have destroyed the camera.