A man dragged a shark off the beach and hurled it back into the ocean in front of shocked sunbathers in Wildwood, New Jersey.
The stunned beachgoer had accidentally caught the shark while fishing on June 5 and quickly hurled the large fish back to sea in less than a minute.
AnInstagram user posted a videoof the beachside shark encounteron the social media platform Thursday.
The user said they received the clip from another user called narodagostino, who was on the beach at the time of the incident.
A woman on the beach told narodagostino that the fish was not a great white shark but that it needed to get back in the water before it died.
An Instagram user posted a video yesterday of a man who dragged a shark back into the ocean in Wildwood, New Jersey on June 5
Wildwood is a resort city in Cape May County, which is part of the Jersey Shore that has had an increase in shark sightings.
The hook from the beachgoer's fishing rod had gotten stuck inside the shark's mouth, which resulted in it being dragged out of the ocean.
The shark appeared to be agitated when the man picked up its tail, but it eventually calmed down.
More than one beachgoer began taking photos and pictures of the shark on their phones, and a young child requested to see the fish.
The shark rescuer gently held it down before picking up its tail and dragging it back into the ocean.
The tail slipped out of the beachgoer's hand, but after he picked it back up, the shark did not fight back.
A few witnesses were happy to see that the shark was okay and swimming away, while narodagostino laughed and called the incident 'crazy.'
The video then catches a glimpse of the young fisherman who was still holding their fishing rod on camera before he stopped recording.
This sighting was just one of many which support a belief that shark sightings are on the rise in Jersey Shore.
Another video of the man posted by the Instagram user on June 6 showed him calming down the agitated shark as soon as it washed onto shore
Rich Weddle, a curator at the Sea Life New Jersey Aquarium, told New Jersey 101.5 this month that shark species are expanding their range in the Jersey Shore's oceans.
He believes that its warmer water from climate change has been a factor in the species' range expansion because it creates nutrients and plankton that attract fish.
'We’ve done a very good job of controlling fisheries so we’ve seen the recovery of fish spots and even seal population levels, which are important prey for many species of sharks,' said Weddle.
Beachgoers will likely see sandbar, sand tiger, and dogfish sharks in-shore the Jersey Shore's oceans.
However, great whites, hammerheads, mako, threshers, and blue sharks have been spotted off-shore around the summertime.
The shark in Wildwood that was attracted to the fisherman's bait earlier this week found itself in a bad but common situation for the fish.
'Often the shark is confused and strikes at us thinking we are food, particularly in water that has a low visibility,' said Weddle.
'The shark senses the motion of a swimmer or a surfer and then sees the contrast of a flash of light, thinks it might be a bait fish, bites it, and then realizes it’s a mistake and immediately lets go.'
The beachgoer who hurled the shark did the right thing by not splashing water, but social media had a problem with how he and another individual first handled the situation.
Beachgoers took videos and photos of the shark before the man managed to remove the hook and let the seemingly unharmed shark swim back into the ocean
'Why would you pull it out the water,' and Instagram user wrote yesterday.
Other Instagram users left angry face emoji comments and one woman demanded he 'put him back.'
'So you'll pull it out of the water and suffocate it just so show off? Alright,' an Instagrammer commented.
Instagram users who commented on video featuring the beachgoer that dragged the shark back into the water had negative things to say about the woman who demanded the fish be let go into the ocean.
'Whoever talked in the back just p***** me off,' an Instagrammer wrote last night.
Another person partially dissed the woman who was referred to as a 'Karen,' but they also agreed with what the woman said.
'She sounds like she’s saying it with an attitude but she’s absolutely right,' they wrote in the comment section last night.
