MANASQUAN, NEW JERSEY — A great white shark has been spotted roughly one mile offshore from the Manasquan Inlet, giving boaters another reminder that some of the ocean’s largest predators are moving surprisingly close to the Jersey Shore.
A video posted from the area shows the shark swimming in open water near Manasquan, with the location described as approximately one mile offshore. The sighting was also shared by the Mantoloking Police Department, while an Instagram post from the same area identified the animal as a great white shark.
For anyone spending August along the Jersey Shore, one mile does not sound very far.
It is about 1.6 kilometers offshore — close enough to make the encounter both fascinating and, as one post put it, “so cool and terrifying at the same time.”
The sighting does not mean sharks have suddenly arrived in New Jersey waters. Great whites are known to travel along the East Coast, and New Jersey has seen numerous documented white-shark encounters over the years. In May, a juvenile white shark named Nori was tracked moving north past New Jersey and New York as part of its seasonal migration.
Earlier this summer, another large white shark, Miss May, was tracked roughly 10 miles off Cape May, while researchers and fishermen regularly report shark activity along the region’s offshore waters during the warmer months.
Manasquan itself has a history of dramatic shark encounters. In 2019, fishermen about 30 miles southeast of the inlet encountered an estimated 16-to-18-foot great white that approached their boat, circled it, and grabbed a bag of chum.
This latest sighting is different for one obvious reason:
it was much closer to shore.
There has been no report connected with the sighting of an attack or injury, and seeing a shark offshore does not automatically indicate an immediate danger to swimmers.
But spotting a great white only about a mile from one of the Jersey Shore’s busiest inlets is still the kind of moment that makes people look at the Atlantic a little differently.
Beautiful, wild — and suddenly a lot less empty than it looked from the beach.
Sources: Mantoloking Police Department; local social media footage from Manasquan Inlet; OCEARCH shark-tracking coverage; ABC News; Patch.
By NJ RADAR Team