When Daneil McCarthy spotted eight critically endangered grey nurse sharks beside a coastal breakwall this week, she was quick to capture a video.

Ms McCarthy, a former resident of the area who now lives in Sydney, said she was pleased to be able to share the experience with others.

"They are some of the beautiful creatures that live in the area, and I was lucky enough to see them.

"I have known the sharks to be there at North Haven for a very long time … it's one of those things — if you don't see if for yourself, you don't believe it."

Onlookers urged not to feed sharks:

The sharks have been regularly seen at North Haven recently, particularly when fishermen are there, and there have been reports of locals feeding the sharks and a crowd gathering to watch.

Conservation biologist Adam Stow, an associate professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, has been studying grey nurse sharks for about 20 years.

He said it was exciting that people were seeing them at North Haven but cautioned against interacting with wild animals.

"As a general principle, it's not a great idea to feed them or supplement the feeding of wild animals.

"I say that with some hesitancy as it's great to see an appreciation of the grey nurse shark in the environment, and I can see the motivation behind doing that is to look after them."

Mr Stow said grey nurses were not an aggressive shark, but advised people not to try and swim with them unless it being part of a guided eco-tourism experience.

"They used to have a fearsome reputation, and that's part of the reason for their demise; they were over-hunted as they were wrongly thought of as people eaters, but they are not," he said.

"They have these rather evil-looking teeth, but they are designed for grabbing fish rather than eating larger organisms, so they're certainly not people eaters — they tend to be 'Relatively' docile.

"There's plenty of eco-tourism where you can go and dive with aggregations [of grey nurse sharks] … having said that, they are a large animal with sharp teeth and you probably want to be a little bit wary."

The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) said it "Strongly discourages" members of the public feeding grey nurse sharks. 

There is a $500 on-the-spot fine for interfering with a threatened species, such as grey nurse sharks.

"People must not touch, feed or interfere with grey nurse sharks, as this can cause them to change their natural behaviours and make them more vulnerable to harm," a DPI spokesperson said.

Are grey nurse shark numbers increasing? 

Grey nurse sharks are listed as critically endangered species along the east coast of Australia, with only about 1,500 estimated to remain.

Mr Stow said the North Haven sightings were not a sign the species' numbers overall were increasing.

"Grey nurse sharks tend to seasonally move up and down the coast each year … they are transitory, they are just passing through," he said.

The DPI is completing a grey nurse shark population abundance estimate, and there is a genetics project with CSIRO and Commonwealth funding. 

Well-known grey nurse shark aggregation sites in NSW include Julian Rocks near Byron Bay, Solitary Islands near Coffs Harbour, Fish Rock near South West Rocks, Seal Rocks near Forster, Magic Point at Maroubra in Sydney and south to Montague Island near Narooma.

Original Story By |Emma Siossian