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A bunch of vacationers was sipping drinks at Skull Creek Dockside in Hilton Head, South Carolina, when a restaurant supervisor casually allow them to know there have been sharks and an alligator swimming off the dock. Gina Athans, a longtime customer from Chicago, didn’t imagine it—till she walked exterior and noticed fins within the water. Then a snout. Then the TikTok began filming.
“I’ve been visiting Hilton Head since I was 12 years old, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Athans instructed The Island Packet. She counted 5 lemon sharks and one alligator drifting by means of the brackish water, every seemingly unbothered by the opposite’s presence. “We were about 50 feet away, and I saw a whole fin. I was mind blown.”
The footage has since gone viral. The gator hovered close to the dock’s edge, half-submerged and nonetheless. The sharks circled slowly, their fins reducing by means of the floor. A couple of children watched from above, hoping for motion. Instead, nothing occurred.
Sharks and an Alligator Spotted Sharing the Same Waters in South Carolina
According to Morgan Hart, Alligator Project Leader for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, sightings like this aren’t as uncommon as individuals suppose. “In coastal areas, sharks and alligators encounter each other quite a bit,” Hart mentioned. Skull Creek is brackish, which means it’s a mix of recent and saltwater. Lemon sharks, which desire heat saltwater, and gators, which normally follow freshwater, can each hang around right here if the situations are proper.
And so long as they’re roughly the identical measurement, there’s not a lot motive to panic. “They’re not a threat to each other either and coexist well,” Hart mentioned. Of course, if one occurs to be a lot smaller than the opposite, nature would possibly take its course. But on this case, each events appeared extra dedicated to chilling than looking.
The larger threat, Hart warned, comes from people. Feeding or harassing alligators is unlawful—and harmful. Gators that lose their concern of individuals can turn out to be aggressive, particularly if they begin associating people with snacks. “It creates an animal that would normally have a fear of people into one that might intentionally approach people for food,” she mentioned.
For now, although, Hilton Head’s wildest dinner friends have left peacefully. No fights. No bites. Just a shark-gator hangout that by some means didn’t finish in catastrophe. Florida, take notes.
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