Australian Kids Wrestle Shark Ashore To Pull Hook From Its Mouth
A group of Australian children were recently filmed pulling a shark ashore by its tail and depositing the predator on a beach in an effort to retrieve a fisherman’s hook from its mouth.
The footage was captured in Western Australia, according to 9 News, before finding its way to YouTube. It depicts a boy wading into the water to confront the shark, which had been pulled to shore by a fisherman. The shark flails in the shallows, clearly in distress, before the boy grabs the animal by its tail and begins dragging it onto the sandy beach.
The shark is immobilized with the help of a rope around its tail, and as several nearby adults and a group of children look on, the boy approaches the predator, attempting to wrest the offending hook from its mouth. Unable to pull it out, the group settle for cutting the line, leaving the shark with the hook embedded in its jaw. As the footage concludes, the two-meter-long shark is shepherded back into the sea, flailing about in the surf before attaining deeper water and swimming off with its dorsal fin breaking the surface.
Western Australia is no stranger to sharks, nor controversy surrounding management of its population. While other states, like New South Wales, have implemented shark nets to protect their beaches, as the Daily Telegraph reports, Western Australia has instead opted for a shark tracking program designed as an early warning system. Relying on data from tags attached to large sharks, a system of acoustic receivers are able to record the animals’ presence.
Tagging ‘not a killing tool’: concern at WA shark policy http://t.co/4Gkc6LGKZt via @WAtoday @NoWASharkCull #sharks pic.twitter.com/7Yc4kRy9TT
— Blue Planet Society (@Seasaver) January 7, 2015
Last December, a large white shark lingered off Warnbro sound, repeatedly triggering the system. Under a controversial “serious threat” policy, a catch and kill order was issued for the shark, despite the fact that the species is protected in Australia. Though Fisheries officials deployed baited drumlines for several days, the animal was able to evade their efforts, which ignited a backlash from shark researchers.
It took two hours to reel in a 441-pound whaler shark http://t.co/lesLFtWWuL pic.twitter.com/lCIje5ArKk
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) January 21, 2015
Earlier this week, another fisherman in Australia landed a large shark, a bronze whaler, from his perch upon a populated beach. As the Inquisitr previously reported, the shark fought for two hours before it was pulled into the shallows, dragging the hapless fisherman along the shoreline. The animal was eventually taken onto the beach, measured, and released in the same manner as the Western Australian shark.
[Image: YouTube/ Chrisandyco]
