Australia is a very curious place. Over the weekend, Melissa Hatheier found herself wrestling a shark out of a rock pool in Cronulla. After the real estate agent from Sydney got a phone call from her mother informing her of the seemingly lost creature, Hatheier made the decision to go and chuck it out.
Once she got to the rock pool, she jumped in with snorkeling gear and spotted the toddler-sized shark, who was casually swimming at the bottom of the pool. Hatheier then managed to lure the shark to a shallow end of the pool in order to grab it. Even though she struggled a bit, she was able to carry it out of the water and drop it at the other side of a small border wall, right in the ocean.
The 30-second video was uploaded to Facebook by Melissa’s real estate company, Cronulla Real Estate, and it has since gone viral with over 330,000 views.
Dubbed “The Shark Wrangler,” Hatheier spoke to ABC about the incident . “My mom swims there every morning with friends and they rang me saying there was a shark, so I ran down there,” she said.
“I saw it and it was just a little Port Jackson so I just thought I should chuck him out.”
She says it’s something she definitely would not have done had it been a different species. “I wouldn’t have done it with a great white,” the agent said.
This particular shark was a Port Jackson, a species that is not considered dangerous to humans. It can grow up to 5.5 ft. long and is native to Australia, oftentimes found near the coastal region of Southern Australia. While it’s not considered dangerous to humans, Hatheier did say that she wouldn’t have grabbed it by the tail; she grabbed him by the fins so he couldn’t bite her.
It is unclear how the little shark ended up in the rock pool, but he was lucky to have been found by someone like Melissa, who was not afraid of doing what she thought was best for the animal: get him back in the ocean, where he belongs.
https://www.facebook.com/CronullaRE/photos/a.772557436112221.1073741828.178553758845928/1692766137424675/?type=3&theater
[Featured Image by skynesher/iStock]
