Fishermen off Australia's southern coast thought they were in for a quiet day on the water — until a massive great white shark showed up and started behaving, as one man put it, "like a big puppy."
The encounter, which has since grabbed attention online, happened near Anglesea, Victoria. According to the Geelong Advertiser, long-time fishermen Kevin McLoughlin and Shane Lockyer spotted the shark swimming directly beneath their boat. Not circling at a distance. Not passing through. Just hanging out.
Photos from the moment show the roughly four-meter (13-foot) great white rolling onto its side and rubbing against the hull, occasionally nudging the boat hard enough to make it sway. At one point, the shark swam alongside the vessel for so long that McLoughlin said it was "almost as long as the boat."
He further explained that the boat started rocking "when the shark brushed its fins against it," adding that in nearly 20 years of fishing, he'd never seen behavior like it. The shark lingered for close to two hours, eventually scaring off the fish and prompting the men to head back to shore.
While the images struck many viewers as strangely adorable — and even magical — marine experts say encounters like this are becoming more common as human activity increasingly overlaps with wildlife habitat. Coastal development, heavy boat traffic, and tourism can bring large marine animals closer to people, sometimes changing how they respond to vessels in the water.
Similar moments have drawn attention elsewhere, from tourists crowding sea lions at La Jolla Cove to visitors getting dangerously close to bison in Yellowstone — encounters that often go viral because they feel extraordinary, but are rooted in humans pushing closer to wildlife than intended.
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What unsettled some viewers was how calm the shark appeared. Marine experts warned that even seemingly gentle encounters can shift quickly. Dr. Leonardo Guida, a shark and ray expert with the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the safest response is to end the interaction altogether.
"Whenever you encounter a large animal at sea," he said, "it's best to immediately cease your activities, stay calm, and not touch or provoke."
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