By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Published: 19:00 BST, 5 September 2026 | Updated: 19:00 BST, 5 September 2026
A rare gathering of marine life recently turned stretches of New York’s coastal waters black as an extraordinary number of sharks, rays and baitfish crowd the ocean just offshore.
Drone footage filmed in late August off Smith Point Beach in Shirley appeared to show dark masses of Atlantic menhaden, silvery forage fish, surrounded by thousands of migrating cownose rays and sharks near Fire Island.
Veteran Long Island photographer Mike Busch said he had never witnessed shark numbers of this magnitude during his years filming the coastline.
‘The difference this year is the number of sharks is something I have never seen before, with literally thousands spread out along the shores of Fire Island and Eastern Long Island,’ Busch told the Daily Mail.
The animals remained approximately 1,000 feet offshore while Busch was filming, but he feared that the right wind could have pushed them directly into areas used by swimmers.
Busch believes most of the predators are migrating spinner sharks, which occasionally leap clear of the water while attacking baitfish, although hammerhead and bull sharks have also reportedly been seen.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) told the Daily Mail that such an enormous gathering was ‘not a common sight,’ but warmer water makes it more likely toward the end of summer.
State experts believe the sharks were primarily pursuing the vast schools of menhaden rather than hunting the rays, although the exact species cannot be confirmed from the aerial images.
A rare gathering of marine life recently turned stretches of New York’s coastal waters black as an extraordinary number of sharks, rays and baitfish crowd the ocean just offshore
Sharks were also spotted by the drone, which officials believe were feeding on the mass gathering of fish
Drone footage filmed late August off Smith Point Beach in Shirley appeared to show dark masses of Atlantic menhaden, silvery forage fish, surrounded by thousands of migrating cownose rays and sharks near Fire Island
Busch said marine activity around Long Island had initially been unusually quiet because Atlantic menhaden, also known locally as bunker, were slow to arrive.
‘Things started slow this year due [to] a lack of a baitfish called menhaden or bunker,’ he said.
