A fisherman stands at a Micro beach sandbar on Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023.
Warning: Expletive language used.
VIDEOS of sharks at Micro Beach in Garapan that were taken on Christmas Day have gone viral on Facebook and WhatsApp.
One video obtained by Variety shows the point of view of Sean Ficke as he uses a stand-up paddleboard around the sandbar near Hyatt Regency Saipan.
In the video, a shark was swimming a few feet away from him.
Ficke said he first spotted nurse sharks preying upon a turtle. Later, a larger shark swam by the sandbar as well.
“The turtle was washed up by the sandbar, and the nurse sharks were feeding on it for about an hour,” Ficke said. “While we were surfing that’s when we noticed a larger 10-foot shark show up. At first I thought it was a black tip, as it was darker than the nurse sharks, but when it exposed its fin and back to us my wife could see from her angle that it was a tiger shark.”
Ficke and his wife were surfing at the time. He said he told people around him to leave the water. He said he has heard of tiger sharks in the waters off Saipan, but this was the first time he’s spotted one in the lagoon.
In another video obtained by Variety, local marine sports instructor Noki Rogopes was kayaking in the Saipan lagoon with a friend when they spotted sharks swimming a few feet away. Rogopes said he saw a tiger shark and nurse sharks. The tiger shark swam underneath his kayak at one point.
Rogopes also confirmed Ficke’s story, saying he witnessed local stand-up paddleboarders in the lagoon checking on a turtle near the sandbar.
“All of a sudden they saw a dark figure in the water just moving, and then they noticed when that dark figure was coming closer [it turned out] to be a group of sharks feeding on a turtle,” Rogopes said in an interview on Wednesday.
Rogopes has been a windsurfing and stand-up paddleboard instructor for around 10 years. He said he has seen many sharks, mostly small black tip reef sharks. But encountering a tiger shark has never happened to him before, he added.
“That was the first time that we’ve seen a tiger shark up close at the Hyatt beach,” Rogopes adds. “The scent of that turtle blood probably went throughout the entire lagoon and that tiger shark picked it up and started swimming in. They were having a feeding frenzy.”
Rogopes said he has never seen a person injured by any kind of shark in the lagoon. Still, he advises people to give sharks “the right of way.”
“If you do see a shark and it seems a lot bigger than you think, swim away. And … warn … the rest of the community. If there’s a shark in the area close to you, swim away. Do not go close to it.”
Variety tried but failed to get a comment from the Division of Fish and Wildlife, the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality and the Mariana Islands Nature Alliance.
