A 10-foot great white shark received a human assist when it found itself stranded on an Australian beach. The Associated Press published a report on the incident, revealing that three men returned the shark from a sand bank into deeper water using crab rakes.
Hamish Anderson, one of the men who was involved, told ABC Radio Adelaide that the shark “never tried to turn around or anything like that.”
“It sort of just let us help it,” Anderson said. “It was a bit hard to get it off the sandbank itself, but the deeper the water, the easier it got. [The shark] still didn’t want to go, so we had to go in again and give it a bit more of a shove.”
Amid the hour-long rescue effort, Nash Core, who was visiting the beach with his wife, Ash Core, and their sons, Parker, 11, and Lennox, 6, decided to get in on the action, the AP reported.
The dad, along with his elder son, went into the ocean to help the shark.
“To be honest, I did have some thoughts about, oh, why am I going out here?” Core told the outlet. “As we were going out… Parker, turned to me and said, ‘My heart’s pounding.’ I said, ‘Yeah, mine’s beating pretty fast too.’”
Inside the Shark Rescue
The father-son duo witnessed the three men getting the “either sick or… just tired” shark further into the ocean. However, they opted not to push the animal in themselves.
“They… got it into deeper water where I thought it’s probably not a good idea to go any further,” Core said. “That’s its territory and I’ll stay back.”
As for how Anderson and the others reacted to their big save, Core recalled their post-rescue conversation.
“We were all just having a laugh,” he said. “They just took it in their stride like it was just something that happens every day. I said, ‘Is that something you’ve seen before?’ They’re like, ‘No.’”
Macquarie University wildlife scientist Vanessa Pirotta told the outlet that the shark strandings are rare. The animal, she said, could have gotten stranded due to illness or injury, or because it chased prey into the shallow water.
“If you see something like this, human safety comes first and foremost,” Pirotta said. “You can contact environmental authorities… who will get someone appropriate to come and assist.”
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