Some locals in the Port Medway area rescued what they believe was a 16-foot great white shark.
Heather Stevens said a friend spotted a few strangely moving buoys while fishing, and all of a sudden a shark surfaced.
Once they realized what it was, they tried to contact Marine Animal Rescue Services, but they knew they would take some time to get there.
Heather and her husband, John Stevens, called their neighbour, who has a lobster boat.
“He was down there right away, and within the nine minutes it took for them to get aboard the boat and get over to the buoy, they had the shark free,” said Heather.
But when John pulled up alongside the shark, it was lifeless. He told her it sort of looked at him and rolled its eye.
John told her the shark looked like it had a rope wrapped behind the dorsal fin, the big one on its back, and along its gills.
“We really feel it was drowning at that point,” said Heather.
When it was free, Heather said the shark sank, and they feared the worst.
But two minutes later it surfaced and started swimming like crazy.
“It kept circling and circling, you know, trying to breathe, trying to get its bearings. That was a magnificent sight,” she said.
“Everyone was so excited that the shark was okay.”
But it kept swimming towards the buoy, so John and crew took the boat alongside the animal and nudged it a bit until it went out of the mouth of the harbour.
Heather said it’s unexpected to see a shark in the maritimes, but weirdly enough she saw one only about a month ago. Her and John saw it feasting on some seals.
She thinks this year there might be more seals, and that’s why sharks could be appearing more often.
Her family loves the oceans and they follow shark week every year, but this was a wonderful experience, she said.
She said John told her he would do it again in a minute
“You know, you don’t want to see any animal suffer. And I would hate for the news story to be ‘Great white shark drowns in Port Medway harbour.'”
“Instead, it’s ‘Great white shark was saved in Port Medway harbour.'”
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