In a real-life "Sharknado" scenario, a group of tourists witnessed as many as 100 sharks feeding frenziedly into a school of bluefish in the shallow end of the water at the Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina, the Washington Post reported.
On Oct. 9, members of One Harbor Church in Morehead City, N.C., were out fishing for an evening meal on the beach when they stumbled upon clusters of sharks conducting an aggressive group attack on a single prey. The footage was immediately filmed by pastor Donnie Griggs.
Three days later, fellow pastor, Brian Recker, uploaded the clip to Facebook and YouTube, where it has been watched more than one million times in just three days.
"As seagulls and pelicans joined in on the meal, the men began to cast into the surf, catching fish without the use of bait," Recker wrote. "For more than five minutes, the sharks were observed swimming in and out of the surf, some of which even became beached in the fury."
However, the videographer understandably did not get too close, so it's hard to see exactly how many sharks there were, what they were feasting on, and to determine the particular species, according to the New York Daily News.
"I haven't seen sharks feeding right on the shoreline before, with sharks being thrown up into the intertidal zone," Gregory Skomal, a senior fisheries biologist who studies sharks for the state of Massachusetts, told National Geographic. "I think it's pretty rare."
While it's common for sharks to pursue prey along beaches, it's rare for them to beach themselves to the point where it's difficult to get back into the water.
But since food is such a focal point of their lives, sharks can become oblivious to the risks and danger of washing up on shore, Skomal said.
"They are so ravenous that they are only thinking about feeding," he said. "It's remarkable."
Meanwhile, "some viewers on YouTube expressed concern that sharks coming so close to the shore to feed is a sign of humans over-fishing in the ocean, but Pastor Recker said the presence of the sharks and blue fish were actually a sign of a healthy marine eco-system," Telegraph reported.
Either way, the church members got to experience an amazing sight. "They went to the cape to encourage church planters, left with a moment they won't soon forget," the organization's page stated.
