At any time when he’s bought 20 minutes to spare, Paul Dabill will swing by the seaside close to his house in southeast Florida. The longtime freediver and underwater photographer will unpack his drone, which might fly as much as 50 mph, and scout the coast a mile in every course and out to sea for critters to doc.
This week, he uploaded an unbelievable video of dozens of black tip sharks feeding on a giant college of mullet. Mullet migrate alongside the Florida coast every fall, usually passing Palm Seaside, the place Dabill lives and works as a restauranteur, from September by way of early October.
“It’s a really thrilling and really dramatic factor to look at,” Dabill tells Outside Life. “They’re usually very near the seaside, and quite a lot of predators are available and attempt to eat them.”
Main predators embrace blacktip sharks, like those pictured on this video, in addition to jack crevalle and tarpon. Blue fish and barracuda will even sometimes present as much as the get together. Dabill found this explicit feeding frenzy after launching his drone from Coral Cove Park on Jupiter Island in late September. Dozens of blacktips might be seen reducing paths by way of the mullet, leaping above the floor, and thrashing as they eat. The mullet—and the sharks—swam proper subsequent to the seaside, which is seen within the video.
“There’s often a pair sharks round, however this was one of the best session I’ve had this season with essentially the most sharks feeding on one college,” says Dabill, who filmed this feeding frenzy for about 25 minutes. “I’ve seen colleges that might stretch over a mile in size. I’d contemplate this college fairly massive and dense, but it surely wasn’t a very massive college. It’s fairly fascinating how massive these colleges can get.”
Blacktips are “fairly skittish” so far as shark species go, in accordance with Dabill.
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“I don’t see them underwater a complete lot and when I’ve, they don’t need something to do with you,” says Dabill, who has been a freediving photographer for about 10 years. “They’ll scatter shortly. That being mentioned, they nonetheless might be accountable for bites however that’s often if you’re in shallow, murky water and there’s baitfish working they usually’re feeding. And if an individual occurs to be swimming there they could get by chance bit. However they’re not in search of people, it’s simply that people occur to be in a murky bait pod and that may not be factor.”
Dabill is keen about documenting “the superb marine life” within the Jupiter-Palm Seaside space. His videography has appeared on Nationwide Geographic and the Discovery Channel. You will discover extra of his movies and pictures, a few of that are on the market as prints, on his Fb and Instagram pages.
