Apologies to anyone who saw this on my Facebook already, but I thought it was worth sharing here: it’s the shark that my friends and I found washed up on Ninety Mile beach these summer holidays. He (let’s call it a he, though I have no idea how to determine the sex of a shark, gender being the last thing on anyone’s mind when happening across one in the wild) was stranded on the sand, still alive, and surrounded by two or three cautious but optimistic black-backed gulls in the manner of a wounded gunslinger in the wild west being watched by a circle of vultures. We dragged him into the water, swam him around until he revived a little then gave him a push into the open sea.
I have no idea whether the shark made it or not, but as he didn’t wash back up we have reason to be optimistic. He was certainly minutes away from having his eyes pecked out where he was.
Likewise I have no idea why he was washed up in the first place. Maybe he was cruising the shallow water, got dumped by a big wave and got stuck (the tide was coming out). Maybe he got caught by a fishing boat and was thrown back half dead. Maybe he had some disease, was dying of old age – or maybe he was starving: scientists have said that the calm weather pattern over New Zealand at the moment (La Nina) has meant that water columns have not mixed as they usually do. This results in fewer plankton, which means fewer small fish like mackerel and herrings, which means top predators like penguins in particular have been washing up dead from starvation. It seems feasible that the same might go for sharks too.
Anyway, I thought you might enjoy this short video of us rescuing the shark. We tried to run water over its gills, as sharks need to move constantly in order to ‘breathe’ – and though of course it was life and death stuff for poor sharky, there was still time to horse around with a fake shark bite to the thigh for my friend (it was kind of scary when you lost sight of him in the white water, and weren’t sure if he was lolling around your leg ready to snap).
PS – I’m going to be posting a lot more of these animal-themed pieces in future. My holiday made me realise how often we come across wild animals in our everyday lives. It’s a bit of a myth, really, that – David Attenborough styles – you need to go to some kind of wilderness to find wild animals – because really, most of our encounters with animals are very much from within the human sphere. So stand by for some urban animalia here soon – and please send in and share any stories or photos of your own.
PPS – can anyone identify the shark? I assumed it was a thresher shark based on the shape of its tail, but would love to know for sure. And is this an adult, or a juvenile (it was really quite small).
