Tens of thousands of blacktip sharks gather off Florida coast

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Florida Atlantic University researchers shared aerial footage of thousands upon thousands of blacktip sharks swimming off the Palm Beach County coast.

The FAU Shark Migration team posted aerial footage to Facebook showing the tens of thousands of blacktip sharks passing by the Palm Beach County coast during their migration.

"It's so cool," biological sciences professor Dr. Stephen Kajiura, who filmed the video Friday, told WPEC-TV. "There are literally tens of thousands of sharks a stone's throw away from our shoreline. You could throw a pebble and literally strike a shark. They are that close."

The researchers said they successfully tagged five sharks with transmitters Saturday. They said they are trying to determine what draws the sharks to the Palm Beach County coast as opposed to the coastlines of Miami-Dade and Broward Counties, where comparatively few sharks have been sighted.

Kajiura said beachgoers have little to fear from the blacktip sharks.

"Even though we have this huge number of sharks -- tens of thousands of them immediately adjacent to shore here in South Florida -- we have relatively few bites," Kajiura told the Palm Beach Daily News. "When you consider the number of people in the water and the number of sharks in the water you'd think there would be a lot of interaction."