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Â鶹Éç’s Big Blue Live film crew captured a close encounter between a great white shark and a bodyboarder while filming in Monterey Bay, California today.

During a rehearsal for Big Blue Live, our helicopter crew were on a search for new species in the bay, in particular great white sharks. Juvenile great whites had been reported in the area and while the team in the helicopter were out filming, they spotted four in the bay, near the shore. As the team was filming, a person entered the water on a bodyboard, paddling out within a few feet of one of the sharks.

Our producer Ben Harris said, ‘The most interesting thing is that once the shark sensed that someone was coming towards it in the water, it turned around and swam away. Juvenile sharks have an amazing perception of what’s around them. Great white sharks have a jelly-filled pores on their faces called electroreceptors. These sense electromagnetic fields which alert them to prey or danger. All living creatures produce an electrical field from muscle contraction which the shark senses’.

Harris says ‘It’s an unusual year and very exciting time to be here, the water temperature is the warmest on record in the bay and we think this is why we are starting to see juvenile great white sharks this far north on the Californian coast as well as some of the other incredible wildlife spectacles we are witnessing’.

The Big Blue Live team reported the sighting of the great whites close to the beach and continued on our search for other extraordinary things that are happening in the bay.