Amazing shark rescue
Paul Kadak, Sydney February 24, 2014, 7:14 pm
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Experts had to manhandle the shark to the surface to perform the tricky operation.
And if you're wondering how to wrestle a shark, the answer is ... very carefully.
In water teeming with life one creature was slowly dying.
Local divers spotted a young female grey nurse shark tangled in an elastic cord which was cutting into its gills.
Her laboured breathing was a sign of distress triggering a daring rescue just off Sydney in a place called Magic Point, which is a crucial shark habitat.
The challenge for a team of divers and a vet from the SeaLife sanctuary and aquarium was to save the shark.
The team have to get the shark to the surface and coax it into a plastic shark sock, clear so the shark will not see it as an obstacle.
The shark is then wrapped in a special stretcher and that's where these professionals have to get a little hands-on.
But the quick underwater wrestle does the job and the injured shark is taken up to waiting vet Rob Jones; the water's surface is his operating table and there is not much time.
Three divers hold her steady. A pair of scissors later and she is freed from her noose. A quick shot of antibiotics and the patient is free to go home.
Mr Jones said: “if we hadn't intervened have no about it would have died, the elastic would have kept cutting deeper and deeper into the neck.”
Despite those pretty fierce looking teeth the grey nurse shark is actually very placid and they call it the labrador of the sea. But they are also critically endangered and there are thought to be only around 1500 of them left off our coast.
They are being killed by beach nets, fishing and pollution, with the population slow to recover.
