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Terrifying moment revellers come face-to-face with 11ft SHARK & ‘close relative of great white’s’ off UK coast
The operator of a replica pirate ship spoke of his surprise
THIS is the terrifying moment revellers came face-to-face with a cousin of the great white shark off the British coast.
Crew on board the Hispaniola Pirate Ship, which runs tourist trips off Scarborough, North Yorkshire, saw a porbeagle shark.
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They said the shark, which can grow up to 11ft (3.5m) long, followed the boat through the South Bay.
Operator Peter Williams filmed the porbeagle shark stalking the replica pirate ship.
The former fisherman said: "You'd never have seen them 20 years ago."
He added that it was rare to see one so close to a vessel despite a rise in the number of shark and dolphin sightings.
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The porbeagle shark is a member of the shark family Lamnidae making it one of the closest living relatives of the great white shark.
It typically lives in the cold and temperate waters of the North Atlantic and Southern Hemisphere.
Porbeagles typically eat bony fish such as mackerel and herring.
They're also known to occasionally eat squid.
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It comes as top experts picked the Great Blasket Island in Co Kerry to begin their search for the first recorded great white shark in Irish or UK waters.
US non-profit research organisation Ocearch is cautiously optimistic that they can create history by finding a great white shark in the waters where we live.
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Chris Fischer, founder of Ocearch, told : "It would be the shark heard around the world.
"It would be the greatest thing we have ever achieved on the water.
"It would be the greatest gift we could give to any region of the world for their future, because that one shark would show people in this area and other research institutions where they can then potentially work on them and get more of the work going."
For decades, the possibility of great white sharks in British or Irish seas has remained a mystery.
Unconfirmed sightings are few and far between and hoaxes have been known.
There has never been a confirmed great white shark sighting in British or Irish waters - however - scientists believe the conditions are perfect.
Porbeagle sharks: fact sheet
Here's what you need to know about this at-risk species.
Porbeagles are sharks found in the Atlantic and South Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean.
They are large and powerfully built, reaching up to 3.7 meters long and weighing up to 230kg.
Members of the species have been known to live up to 30 or even 65 years.
Females don't reproduce until they are about 13 years old and then give birth to an average of four pups every one or two years.
Offspring are birthed live after a gestation period lasting between eight and nine months.
Because of their slow reproductive cycle porbeagle populations cannot recover quickly from declining population numbers.
In addition to overfishing in certain parts of the world their populations have been decimated by habitat loss and degradation.
Another factor is bycatch, defined by NOAA Fisheries as "discarded catch of marine species and unobserved mortality due to a direct encounter with fishing vessels and gear".
Northwest Atlantic porbeagles are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean populations are critically endangered.
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