Rise in basking shark sightings worries Sept-les swimmersbut no danger there, says researcher

If you saw an eight-metre-long shark nonchalantly circle your boat one hot summer day, Anik Boileau says she wouldn't blame you for feeling unnerved.

"They're quite big," saidBoileau, the director of a marine research centre based in Sept-les. "But they're really, really not dangerous."

Basking sharks are the second largest shark species after whale sharks, but unlike many of their shark contemporaries, they're unafraid of humans and areunlikely to attack them, or any other fish for that matter.

They are slow-swimming, plankton-eating creatures that tend to catch the eye of a couplelocal residents every year.

This year, though, Boileau says they seem to be having a field trip in the Gulf of the Saint Lawrence. Already in the past month, she knows of six sightings, in addition to five videos from people who saw them in the gulf.

The sightings have been met with concern by a number of residents and Boileau says she wants to reassure people that they can carry on with their water activities, unbothered.

Echoes of JAWS

Some of those videos have eerily echoed the 1975 movieJAWS, with their depiction of a large shark fin gliding across the water.

It's not clear to Boileau whether the sightings feature different sharks or some of the same.

"There are of course more observations than usual," she said. Butshe's confident there aren't necessarily more than usual.

"Personally, I think it's because the water is much hotter this year in the area."

While the Atlantic sea's surface water in theSept-lesarea will typically reach 10 C in the summer, she says it's now lept to 20 C. Sept-lesis in the throes of a heatwave.

'A very mysterious shark'

For one, Boileau says, basking sharkstrue to their name like to bask in the warm sunlight. More plankton may also bloom in the heat, she said, causing them to rise to the surface to feed more.

Boileausays the basking shark may be big, but little is known about its life history.

"It's a very mysterious shark," she said, adding it could be endangered, something the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans is looking into.