First-ever footage of newborn great white shark released
ABC News
In July 2023, filmmaker Carlos Gauna and UC Riverside doctoral student Phillip Sternes captured drone footage of what is believed to be a newborn great white shark.
Researchers are now one step closer on the mysterious path of examining one of the ocean's fiercest predators.
What is believed to be the world's first-ever footage of a newborn great white shark was released Monday, in the Environmental Biology of Fishes journal, and the 5-foot-long, white pup could make scientific history.
In July 2023, wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and UC Riverside biology doctoral student Phillip Sternes were using drone cameras to scan the waters in Santa Barbara on California's central coast when they discovered what's believed to be a newborn great white shark that was veiled in a "milky" white substance.
Gauna told ABC News that he frequently filmed this area in Santa Barbara because he's seen "really large, adult-sized and possibly pregnant" sharks at that particular location. He noticed the sharks would show up in a three to four-week window, so "on a hunch" he made it a goal to observe sharks there "from sunrise to sunset" in the hopes of seeing a newborn great white shark.
On that fateful day, Gauna says they had already been filming for eight to nine hours when they saw a large shark go down in the water and disappear. "What came up was this beautiful, little, literally white, shark."
