Warm waters draw sharks off Israel's Mediterranean coast
This picture taken on Tuesday shows an aerial view of people using their phones and cameras to film a shark swimming past in the shallow Mediterranean Sea water off the Israeli coastal town of Hadera north of Tel Aviv.
Dozens of sharks gathered on Tuesday in warm waters of the Mediterranean near an Israeli power plant, drawing sightseers in what has become an annual occurrence.
The sharks’ fins sliced through the shallow waters just meters from bathers eager to take photos of them near the city of Hadera.
Sandbar and dusky sharks, which are known to frequent the waters, can grow up to 3 meters in length.
The sharks gather each year near where the power plant’s hot water outlet gushes into the Mediterranean Sea.
The Israel Nature and Parks Authority warned both amateur and professional divers against swimming with the creatures.
“The interaction with sharks is neither predictable or controllable, and in recent days there has also been a change in the sharks’ behavior,” the authority wrote.
The sharks are endangered and it is illegal to harm, feed or harass them.
Most of those in the waters off Hadera on Tuesday were dusky sharks, although some were the slightly smaller sandbar sharks, said Aviad Scheinin, an expert on apex predators at the University of Haifa.
