Rare bluefin tuna fish spotted off Dorset coast

Mike Corica, director of Dorset Cruises, was riding along the coast at Old Harry Rocks when he spotted something in the water that caught his eye.  

He said: “I just went out on my jet ski at about 8am on Saturday morning because it was a nice day and it's nice to be on the water before everybody else gets out there.

“I've just gone round past old Harry's Rock and I saw something in the corner of my eye which I immediately thought was a dolphin because obviously there's been quite a few of them around this year.

“We got the camera out and then I saw it come out again and realized pretty much straight away it wasn't a dolphin.

“A friend of mine in South Africa is a shark biologist, so I sent him the video to ask him his thoughts on it because I could see it had a vertical tail, which would be more in line with something like a shark rather than dolphins, which have horizontal tails.

“And he came back to me straight away and said 'that's a big tuna'.

“It was a surprise, to say the least.”

The 38-year-old from Bournemouth added: “I think the thing that surprised me was that it was that close to the shore because it was maybe about 150 meters away from the cliff base by Old Harry.

“You don't necessarily want to be, in its way in the water, because they're an aggressive hunter, very fast and extremely strong.”

“I just like to go out along the Jurassic Coast to see if I can see anything interesting and Saturday was a lucky day."

The fish was approximately six feet long.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna fish has been seen several times in British waters, most likely due to environmental changes.

They can also travel at speeds of up to 70 kilometres per hour.