When Tim Van Beelen jumped in the water in early October to take a few shots, he found himself in a once-in-a-lifetime situation. He came upon a juvenile tiger shark that was making a meal out of a sea turtle–but as amazing as that was, it wasn’t anything compared to what the shark did next.
“I was aware of the situation I had put myself in and knew I had to keep my distance to avoid interfering with nature,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “What happened next I definitely did not expect and will never forget!!!”
After a few minutes of filming, the tiger shark decided it’d better show Van Beelen who was in charge of the situation. With jaws agape, it swam slowly towards him. “This was not an attack, it was simply a warning [for me] to get away from his food,” Van Beelen wrote. “You can see how slowly the shark swims up and doesn’t even attempt to bite me. If he wanted me, he would’ve had me plain and simple.”
Van Beelen wants this video to help change the public perception of sharks. “Tiger sharks are not hunters they are scavengers, basically the garbage truck of the ocean,” he wrote. “They only target sick or wounded prey, and as you can see here do not attack with much aggression. They are not the sharks the media makes them out to be, they are very placid and generally avoid any contact with us.”
