Police officers responded to a report of a shark sighting in shallow waters in the Hamptons on Saturday morning, authorities said.
Quogue village police said the report came in near Penniman Creek, which feeds Shinnecock Bay and Quogue Canal, at 9:07 a.m.
“The shark is an unknown species at this time and is reported to be approximately 10 to 12 feet in length,” police said in a statement.
Quogue police and Southampton Town Bay Constables are attempting to monitor the shark with a drone. They urge swimmers and boaters to be aware of the situation and maintain a safe distance.
The sighting comes after Long Island had its first shark bite in 70 years last summer, a non-fatal incident on Fire Island. While the bite was rare, shark sightings around LI are not uncommon, although sharks are not usually spotted near creeks.
A Great White named Cabot was spotted in the Long Island Sound in May. Another shark named Mary Lee that, like Cabot, is being tracked by GPS, pinged several times off the Atlantic coast. And the nonprofit group Ocearch tracking those sharks led an expedition that revealed a shark nursery in deeper ocean waters off LI.
Several harmless basking sharks forced a brief swimming ban in Westhampton Beach in 2011, another shark was spotted off Atlantic Beach in 2013, and two sharks spotted off Tobay sparked a scare in 2015.
Dead sharks also occasionally wash up on LI shores, such as a dying basking shark washed up in 2009.
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