Researchers examine body of great white shark found on Cape Breton beach
Shark was more than 4 metres in length, weighed more than 430 kg, says conservation group
The body of a great white shark has been found and examined after video of it swimming near Ingonish, N.S., last week made the rounds on social media.
Multiple people saw the shark thrashing in the water near North Bay Wharf before its body was seen on Broad Cove Beach in Cape Breton on Oct. 5. It was later washed out to sea, but reappeared on Sunday, allowing researchers to get to it.
Tonya Wimmer, the executive director of the Marine Animal Response Society, said Thursday on Information Morning Cape Breton the organization first heard that the animal was seen late last Thursday. When it was found again over the weekend, they were able to get its body to a facility for a necropsy with help from the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative and the Atlantic Veterinary College.
Wimmer said they confirmed the shark seen in several videos on social media was the one that was found dead a few days later.
"That video that everyone has been looking at of this shark that … seemed to be either thrashing around a bit or, potentially, it was chasing food," she said.
"It's not odd for a white shark to be near shore. That is where some of their prey, especially seals, like to live. But the animal was acting oddly in the sense that it was sort of coming up and seemingly bumping into the wharf," Wimmer added.
Wimmer said the shark is a mature adult and measures more than four metres in length and weighs well over 430 kilograms. Its body was in good condition, which was beneficial for the examination, had healthy muscle tissue and had not recently eaten much.
Now, further examinations will be conducted to see if there was possibly an underlying condition that was causing the shark to act strangely. In this species, Wimmer said other necropsies have found evidence of inflammation of the brain that may be affecting the sharks' behaviour.
She added that this is the fifth shark that has been found dead in the Maritime provinces in the last year.
"They're looking at all of these sharks to see if there's any possible explanation, whether it is something affecting their brain, whether it's some other kind of disease or condition that they may have," Wimmer said.
"It is an endangered species, so we do want to be able to keep an eye on the health of the population overall," she added. "We want to be able … to make sure that they actually are healthy and that there's nothing else in the environment or even from human activities that might be hurting them."
