Overview
- The tourist boat Orca, returning from a dolphin tour, encountered an estimated eight-meter basking shark near Cape Muzil on Saturday about half a nautical mile off Pula.
- Captain Zvonko Halimić cut the engine and let the boat drift, and the shark circled at the surface over roughly 40 meters of water.
- The animal filtered plankton with its wide-open mouth and stayed close for about ten minutes as passengers filmed and children reached toward it.
- After early confusion with a whale shark, marine expert Ulrike Kirsch confirmed it was a basking shark, a harmless filter feeder and the world’s second-largest fish.
- The species is protected and occasionally appears in the northern Adriatic during spring plankton blooms, and reporters noted no injuries or official follow-up.