Great white shark thief caught on video


​A shark thief?  Fishermen captured the moment a Great White stole their bag of bait. (Via Flickr / kqedquest)

Yes, the shark ripped the bag of chum from a 35-foot boat off the coast of Cape May County in New Jersey on Saturday. That's according to the New York Daily News. 

WCAU has more details — saying the shark was 16 feet long, and that it swam near the boat for about 20 minutes.

Turns out these fishermen were kind of looking for a moment just like that. Well, maybe they didn't want their bait stolen. But WCAU says Steve Clark and his team, the people on board the ship, work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to tag sharks.

It's part of the Apex Predators Program — a conservation effort focusing on researching the lives of sharks. (Via National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Clark says he usually sees one Great White a year.

And conservation efforts seem to be working — ABC reports the NOAA just published a study showing that since 1997, the species' population has increased by about 42 percent, surging off the U.S. East Coast and Canada.

For years before that, the sharks' numbers had plummeted, spurring a federal ban on hunting great whites.

See more at newsy.com.