Dead shark shock
Large sea creature may have been killed by fishermen’s rope
Large sea creature may have been killed by fishermen’s rope
A LARGE shark was found dead off Playa Levante in Santa Pola last Thursday, informed a town hall spokesman.
It was a bluntnose sixgill measuring 3.6 metres long and weighing over 200 kilos.
The dead shark was spotted last Wednesday afternoon floating near the shore and the following morning became stuck at the end of the breakwater.
Local police called in workers from street cleaning company Urbaser, who man- aged to bring it ashore with a dinghy, then lifted it out of the water and into the back of a truck using a crane.
The spokesman noted the carcass was ‘almost complete’ and that a rope of the type commonly used by trawler fishing boats was caught between its gills and mouth.
It was taken back to Urbaser’s premises to determine whether to send the whole body or just a sample to the regional government’s coastal ecology institute for examination.
Rachel Graham of MarAlliance, an NGO which improves understanding and conservation of threatened marine species and their habitats, told Costa Blanca News that not a huge amount known about bluntnose sixgills.
She noted this is the second one washed up in about a month, saying it is concerning they might be getting caught by trawlers, which calls out for a study.
“Bluntnose are known to move into shallower waters in some sites but are a widely distributed and generally deepwater (250 metres plus) species that occupy both tropical and temperate waters worldwide,” she explained.
They are generally harmless to humans but can grow up to nearly eight metres long.