Gentle Giants Of The Gulf

June 4, 2009

Release from: Cynthia Smoot
Fox -Tampa Bay (Florida)

TARPON SPRINGS - Scott and Dane Konger were fishing for red snapper 35 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico when they saw it -- a big dorsal fin, then a tail that was unmistakably a shark.

But not just any shark -- a whale shark. Two of them.

Whale sharks are the world's largest fish. They can grow up to 60 feet long and weigh well over two tons. The Kongers estimate both the whale sharks they saw to be 35 to 40 feet long.

That didn't stop them from donning snorkel mask and fins, grabbing a video camera and jumping in.

Scott Konger went in first. "All of a sudden it comes out of the foggy water and there it is right there next to you, and it was quite a thrill. A little scary, but quite exciting."

Dane Konger said the whale shark looked big from their boat. But he didn't realize how big until he was in the water.

"When you first get in, you can't see it. So you know what direction to go and as you're going towards it, it comes into view and it's much larger than what you expect. You look and all of a sudden there's a truck coming at you. It's huge," Dane recalled.

Whale sharks are known as "gentle giants" of the deep. There are even some places in the world where divers pay to watch and interact with them. Scott said this one, a female, didn't seem to mind her human visitors.

"She opens her mouth and skims the surface and the whole time we were with her she never stopped feeding. She didn't mind at all. It was pretty amazing."

Shark whales are filter feeders. They swim close to the surface with their mouths wide open, scooping up plankton.

Scott, who's a marine biologist and owner of the Tarpon Springs Aquarium, has a theory on why they were there. He noticed lots of shrimp spawning in the area.

"You could see these little things moving around. It was like a soup up there and they were just going through skimming through that soup. So I think they were eating the larva of those shrimp. That's my suspicion."

The Konger brothers know they've witnessed something pretty special, and seen what few people ever get to see.

Dane Konger says after his initial nervousness, he relaxed and just tried to savor the moment.

"..then you're just kind of mesmerized by it and you're starting to think this is something you're probably never going to see again. That was actually the thought that was going through my mind."