Watch: The incredible moment a 15ft baby basking shark was spotted swimming in Pittenweem harbour
A local cetacean enthusiast captured the huge basking shark on camera using his drone.
A local man has captured the moment a 15ft baby basking shark was spotted swimming in a harbour in Fife.
Fishermen first caught sight of the huge creature in Pittenweem harbour early on Wednesday morning, and quickly shared the discovery.
“I’d been up then gone back to my bed when my wife checked her phone and said ‘there’s a basking shark out there’,” recalls David Thomson, 53, a keen shore watcher who runs a local Facebook group documenting cetacean sightings in the area.
“I shrugged my shoulders and tried to get back to sleep. And then she goes ‘no, there really is - there’s a video’.”
Mr Thomson immediately grabbed his drone, cameras and binoculars and headed down to the bay.
“And there it was,” he said. “There was no mistaking it. There was a 15ft-long basking shark less than 100m from the shore.
“It was very close, swimming over the skerries between the rocks.”
Mr Thomson said the tell-tale signs were the animal’s fin and tail. He quickly recognised the shark was a juvenile, probably around one to two years old.
As word of the discovery spread, onlookers gathered on the pier hoping to catch sight of the huge fish.
“The crowd just started to grow and grow, with people coming and going,” Mr Thomson said. “Some people came all the way from Alloa.
“The shark was coming right to the pier and almost brushing against it. People were looking right down at it through the crystal clear water.
“Certainly for the east coast of Scotland, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a basking shark so close in.”
Mr Thomson is part of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation society, which runs shore watches in Pittenweem. He also runs the East Neuk Cetacean Watch Facebook page, which has around 5,000 members.
He said that while basking shark sightings in the Firth of Forth were rare, with only between five and ten reported each year, they are getting more and more common.
“The way things are changing, we’re seeing more and more,” he said. “The environment is getting better for them.
“I’ve lived in Pittenwehm all my days and it’s only the last two to three years I’ve seen basking sharks. It’s brilliant to see what’s beginning to come into the waters.
“We’ve seen Sei whales, Fin whales and Minke whales, and we get dolphins almost every day. The firth is beginning to become a hub for cetaceans.”
Later in the day, an adult basking shark was spotted with the baby, and a pod of dolphins were also spotted jumping around the animals.
“It was a crazy day and the reaction has been mad,” Mr Thomson said. “The video has a quarter of a million views on one platform and about 150 thousand on another. It’s great to see people’s interest in it.”
Basking sharks are mainly found around the Western Isles, where there are some of the world’s largest aggregations of the species. They are also commonly spotted around the south-west of England, Wales and the Isle of Man.
Basking whales were hunted in Scotland up until 1994, with the oil in their livers used to make cosmetics, perfumes, lubricants and as lamp oil. They are the second largest fish in Scotland’s oceans, with bodies that can be longer than a bus.
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