The video shows the men reeling in their catch as a throng of sharks swarm in to take advantage of the haul in Murray Island in the Torres Strait.
The men can be seen throwing their nets out into the shallow waters mere feet away from the swirling predators.
The video, taken by local woman Philomena Nona, has since amassed more than 1 million views since it was shared over Facebook on March 26.
“They’re everywhere!” one woman can be heard shouting to the fishermen as the camera pans to capture a sea of thrashing fins.
The undeterred fishermen continue to reel in large fish from the shoreline and even wade into the water multiple times throughout the 14-minute clip.
Intrigued children run down the water’s edge to participate in the commotion as some of the women throw the smaller fish back into the ocean.
Shocked viewers rushed to share their thoughts on the video, with some identifying the sharks as harmless nurse sharks or leopard sharks.
“Look how close those sharks are and people keep fishing,” one woman noted. “I love the beach but not when there are sharks so close,” said another.
“Seen schools of fish on the shore before, but never had the sharks come in feeding like that,” a local diver added.
Last year, a similar video emerged from neighboring Mer Island in the Torres Strait, showing 20 dancing sharks, wriggling in unison on the shoreline.
The nurse sharks, believed to be the same species of shark in the video captured last month, were filmed by local resident William Bero.
In the video, the sharks appear to almost ignore the shoals of fish convening on the shoreline.
“You’ll see them gather at one particular spot and they’ll just sit there and wait,” he said. “From about September onwards, they sit up right along the beach.”
Bero told the website Tropic Now it is not an unusual sight. The sharks frequently approach the beach to wait for pipi shells, which emerge from the sea when the tide rises.
Nurse sharks are a large, gray-brown species that live around the shores of the Indo-Pacific and can reach lengths of up to 10 feet.
According to Fishes of Australia, they feed on small fish and invertebrates, including squid, lobster, and sea urchins that inhabit the sea floor.
These gentle giants do not pose much of a threat to humans and are categorized as vulnerable under the IUCN Red List. Their narrow range and low reproduction rates make them susceptible to overfishing, but populations remain strong off the Australian coast.
