Saturday, January 12, 2008

Great White sharks in the cold waters of the North Sea?

Watch out! Jaws could be about - off the coast of eastern England.

The body of a seal mutilated with a huge bite mark has been washed up in Norfolk and experts say it could be the work of a great white shark.

Further down the coast, angler Mike Bakun, 53, found the head of a porpoise on a beach near Aldeburgh, Suffolk.

He said: "It was as if the back end had been chomped right off. Then the next day I saw on the news that a seal had been savaged off the Norfolk coast."

The latest alerts follow a series of claims last summer of sharks near Cornish beaches.
Great whites are normally found off Australia and South Africa but can survive waters as cold as the North Sea.

The man-eating shark, made famous by the Jaws films, can reach up to 4,500lbs. Dr Ken Collins, of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said the bite on the first seal at Sheringham indicated a big shark.

He added: "Something with very sharp teeth has come in and hit it at speed and taken a single bite out of it.

"The chunk taken out suggests a large shark. There is no reason why there wouldn't be great whites off the coast. They live in waters with similar temperatures."

But the Shark Trust's Ali Hood said it was "extremely unlikely" to be Jaws.

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