In the deep ocean on the East Coast, a fisherman on a kayak witnessed a frenzied fight between a shark and a seal.
Without missing a beat, Greg Potter recorded the cat and mouse interaction.
“I've got a juvenile great white shark chasing a seal out here!” said Potter in the video.
Since then, an expert has determined that the shark is a mako not a great white.
Being around 9km off the coast of Waihau bay and with the chase happening under his kayak, he turned around and peddled back to land.
But what would have happened if Potter didn’t leave? What if he stayed? Would he be the shark's dessert by now?
To answer this Seven Sharp spoke to Riley Elliot, a marine biologist who's no stranger to sharks.
“Sharks don’t actively hunt people, but he literally put himself right in the middle of it, lucky he was calm, collected [and] got the footage,” said Elliot.
“Ironically in the video it was a mako shark, which is the fastest shark in the sea. Very agile so that's likely why it went on for quite a long time and what happens is the seal mid-air, I think saw the kayak and when this happens the seal will come to the boat, often jump in the boat.”
Mako sharks are known for hunting seals but to Elliot, this was the first time he had witnessed it in New Zealand.
“This is a incredibly novel piece of behaviour and I guess you have to get in a kayak and go 10km off the shore chasing big fish to do it,” Elliot cheekily remarked.
Great whites and mako sharks are locals to the Gisborne area, where the incident took place.
“The Ranfurly Banks is where these two populations kind of cross over, it’s a very productive area.
“There's a lot of tuna running at the moment which is likely why that mako shark was there. For it to have a go at the seal, hard game to catch.”
His advice to Potter: "Have a bigger boat than that dude!"
In the video a seal is seemingly running away from the shark, jumping in and out of the water with the apex predator hot on its tail.
“I didn’t think it was a shark and a seal I thought it was a tuna, jumping on the surface,” said Potter.
“I was quite far away from the shark and the seal; I was a good 200 metres at least.
“I was in awe of what was going on it was just like something you see in a David Attenborough documentary but in the flesh, it was something else.”
During the altercation the seal smashed into the side of the kayak and was trying to hide underneath it to escape the shark, which followed and also bumped the kayak.
“The seal still hid underneath the kayak trying to escape the shark and the shark came right up underneath and smashed the underside of the kayak, and it almost knocked me out it was really close and at that point I knew it was time to go in.
“[My] heart was definitely racing, obviously having a huge shark jumping literally metres by my kayak was something else.”
Sadly, Potter didn’t have the answer whether the seal survived the shark attack.
“I started heading back towards the coastline, but I did look over my shoulder a couple of times and from what I could see the seal was doing its best Sonny Bill Williams impersonation and was dodging that shark.
“I’d like to think it got away but hey I can’t give you an answer to be sure.”
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