Don’t get me wrong, I love swimming in the ocean.
When I go to the beach I like spending as much of my time as possible in the water. And I know that means sharing the ocean with the wildlife that lives there: After all, I’m the one invading their home.
But after seeing this video, I might think twice and just hit up the pool instead.
A video captured by a Florida beach goer and shared by WTSP out of Tampa Bay shows a group of over 100 stingrays (called a “fever”) swimming frighteningly close to the shore, moving around beachgoers in front of a Florida resort.
The scene was captured outside of the Lani Kai Island Resort in Fort Myers, Florida, and shows the pack of rays maneuvering around swimmers in the water as it moves down the beach.
The folks in the water remain surprisingly calm as the pack of rays simply mind their own business and swim around anybody in their way. And it’s actually really cool to watch the group of rays break up and reform as they maneuver around the people in the water.
And despite what we may think about stingrays (especially for those of us who grew up watching Steve Irwin – RIP), the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says that the rays are generally not aggressive and actually pose little threat to humans, despite their venomous barbs on the base of their tails that the creatures use for self-defense.
Now, I’ve seen rays in the water around me while I’ve been swimming in the ocean before, but definitely never this many at once.
Nature can be pretty cool to watch – and those people in the water got a front row seat.
