Mystery as butchered shark found strung up from buoy in 'barbaric' deliberate act of cruelty off Australian coast
- Local divers spotted the shark near to dive wreck marine reserve
- It had been slashed across its belly and bound tightly to a marker buoy
PUBLISHED: 15:16 GMT, 30 July 2013 | UPDATED: 15:16 GMT, 30 July 2013
With their masses of razor-sharp, pointy teeth and propensity for chewing the legs of innocent paddlers, it's hard to evoke sympathy for sharks.
But Australian divers were nonetheless appalled when they chanced upon this 260lb specimen which was brutally slaughtered and strung up by its tail off the coast of New South Wales.
It had been slashed across its midsection and bound tightly to a marker buoy, with the tangled rope around it suggesting it had tried to struggle free as it suffered a long, lingering death.
'Barbaric scene': The six-foot mako shark was discovered by builder and marine photographer Robbert Westerdyk bound to a buoy in the HMAS Adelaide marine reserve, about 60 miles north of Sydney
The disturbing images were taken by Robbert Westerdyke, who spotted the two-metre long mako shark during a dive with friends around the HMAS Adelaide marine reserve, about 60 miles north of Sydney.
'It was a horrible thing to see If this was a land creature, the perpetrator would get locked up.'
Mr Westerdyk said he took photographs of the scene and then cut the shark free and let it sink to the bottom.
'It can only be have done by fishermen who should not have been anywhere near the site as it is a marine sanctuary and no fishing is allowed,' he said.
He added to the Sydney Morning Herald: 'It was strung around the tail, probably 9, 10, 11, 12 times. It was really strung up tight by the tail, and then there was a big gash right across the torso of the shark.'
He added: 'I don't even think the shark was fully dead at the time because of the way it was quite gnarled and twisted.
'I think it still must have had a bit of life and it was still maybe trying to fight.'
'It was a horrible thing to see': The mako shark had been stabbed in the chest, had its tail tied round a marker buoy and may have been left hanging for several days. Mr Westerdyke cut it free after photographing it
Mr Westerdyk, a builder who has been diving in the area for some 40 years, said he had only ever seen one mako shark in the wild before.
'They're normally a deep ocean fish and they're out there chasing the pelagic fish," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
'They usually don't give us any grief at all, but they are a really nice looking fish. They're very sleek and they're very fast.'
Mr Westerdyk forwarded the pictures to the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, which has investigating.
There is no ban on fishing for mako sharks, but this one was found in the 200m exclusion zone around HMAS Adelaide, a former Royal Australian Navy frigate sunk as a dive wreck two years ago.
Dr David Powter, a senior environmental science lecturer at Newcastle University's Ourimbah campus, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the attack appeared to be a deliberate act of cruelty.
'This is such a senseless act for such a beautiful creature and it would apply if it wasn't a shark, if it wasn't a marine organism,' he said.
'It's just such a senseless act to take a life like that for no purpose.'
Deliberate act of cruelty: Mr Westerdyk said he thinks the manner in which the mako shark was tangled in the buoy's anchor rope suggested the shark wasn't dead when it was dumped into the sea and tried to free itself
Shortfin mako sharks like the one discovered by Mr Westerdyk inhabit offshore temperate and tropical seas worldwide, normally far from land though occasionally closer to shore, around islands or inlets.
They can be found from the surface down to depths of 500ft and mainly feed on bony fishes including mackerels, tunas, bonitos, and swordfish, but may also eat other sharks, porpoises, sea turtles, and seabirds.
The fastest known species of shark, mako have been recorded at speeds of 31mph, with bursts of upto 46mph, and have been known to leap 30ft or higher above the surface of the ocean.
There are cases when an angry mako has jumped into a boat after having been hooked.
Mako are far from harmless. They have been implicated in 42 attacks on humans between 1980 and 2010, three of which were fatal, along with 20 boat attacks, according to statistics from the International Shark Attack File.
