As the Northern Hemisphere makes its way through winter, thousands of sharks are doing the same as they cruise along Florida's coastline. This beautiful clip was captured by the team at Florida Atlantic University during an aerial survey of Palm Beach. It's quite the spectacle, but absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. 


The sharks in the video are blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus), which commonly travel up and down Florida's coast in large numbers. While scientists don’t know exactly what’s bringing them en masse, it’s thought that the schooling has to do with both food and the sharks' annual migration pattern.

This is the first reported sighting for 2016, and the schooling fish are a bit late to the party (aggregations like this typically begin in January).

"We've had such a warm winter so far," shark biologist Dr Stephen Kajiura tells Palm Beach Magazine. "It's possible the temperature had not dropped enough to stimulate them to migrate south." 

The move offers scientists a great opportunity to learn more about these ocean predators, their biology, and how they're faring in the wake of climate change and overfishing.

"Sharks have been doing this since long before we got to Florida – hanging out in the winter and heading back north again," Kajiura says. "It's a natural phenomenon."

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