Video: Sometimes a Wild Encounter With a Great White Can Be 'Docile...Peaceful

When an encounter with a great white shark makes the news, it's rarely said to be "docile" or "peaceful," but that's how a Santa Barbara fisherman described it.

Three fishermen in California over the weekend saw birds circling above and a shark feeding on a dead sea lion not too far below the surface.

The fishermen filmed their "peaceful" encounter safely from the boat. (Image source: KYTV video screenshot)

"It was very docile. It was almost peaceful to watch," one of the fishermen, Robert Ruth, told KEYT-TV. "We were really not intimidating to it at all. You could tell it it was not threatened by us. It came very close to the boat. We could have reached out and touched it with a fishing pole, we were that close."

Watch footage of the close encounter courtesy of KEYT:

For even more graphic footage taken of a great white's meal time, check out what a family witnessed last year.

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