Rare albino nurse shark caught off Florida

Chris Silvestri Jr. ‘feeling accomplished’ after reeling in an 8-foot, 250-pound all-white nurse shark; shark expert has never seen or heard of one before

by David Strege

A rare albino nurse shark caught off Florida. 

A 16-year-old fisherman caught a fish earlier this week that he’ll be talking about for the rest of his life—a rare albino nurse shark.
Chris Silvestri Jr. was fishing with his family near Captiva Pass, Florida, when he hooked into a huge fish. Once he got it close to the boat, they got their first glimpse of the nurse shark and it appeared to be glowing. As it got closer, they realized it was an albino nurse shark. They were truly amazed by its color.
Silvestri’s sister Gina captured video, and Silvestri and his albino nurse shark made the news. Here’s the report from NBC2 News in Fort Myers, Florida:
“So after catching little fish all day, I got me a 250-pound, 8-foot, albino nurse shark—feeling accomplished,” Silvestri wrote on Facebook.
After a 20-minute battle, the albino nurse shark got loose and swam away, leaving the Cape Coral family with a memory of a lifetime and video to prove it.

Rare albino nurse shark. 

“It’s probably one in a million I would imagine,” Chris Silvestri Sr., who captained the boat, told NBC2 News. “I’ve never heard of anybody catching an albino shark, but I guess he got lucky.”
In fact, David Shiffman, a marine biologist studying shark-feeding ecology and conservation who’s become a presence online as a shark expert, made this comment on Facebook about the albino nurse shark:
“Nothing to see here, just an ALL-WHITE NURSE SHARK!
“I’ve seen about 1,000 of these animals, and they come in a ton of color patterns, but I’ve never seen (or heard of) an all white one.”
Until now.