When you spend most of your days thousands of feet above the earth, incredible sights go with the territory. This pilot, however, recently witnessed something he hasn’t seen in ten years of flying.
Massachusetts pilot Aaron Knight shared this impressive bit of footage after a recent flight over Monomoy Island in Cape Cod. This eight-mile stretch of beach was littered with countless seals, all lining up along the shore break. And while we don’t have a precise count, it's safe to say the number falls short of Knight's "18 trillion" estimate on Facebook.
“They used to be in harems and small chunks dotted down the beach, but this year … it’s just astonishing," Knight tells The Boston Globe. "It’s an infinite forever stretch of seals.”
An annual hangout for various seal species, Cape Cod is also known to host migrating white sharks, and it's possible that this recent takeover will draw more predators to the area. While beachgoers might struggle to find a spot along the shore, we're suspect the shark population doesn't mind the company one bit.
"It’s a continuous blubber buffet for the great whites,” adds Knight.
__
Top header image: Peg, Flickr