Story at a glance
- A pregnant great white shark washed ashore on a Florida beach on Friday.
- Crews removed the pregnant shark, which was roughly 13 to 15 feet in length after it was found dead on the shoreline.
- The cause of death is unknown but the animal was identified as a great white shark.
Editor’s Note: This video may contain graphic content that may disturb some viewers.
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A pregnant great white shark washed ashore on a Florida beach on Friday, according to Navarre Beach Fire Rescue.
Crews removed the pregnant shark, which was roughly 13 to 15 feet in length after it was found dead on the shoreline.
Video, which you can see in the player above, captured by South Santa Rosa News shows officials around the shark as they prepared to remove it from the shoreline.
A woman can be heard saying the shark may be a Mako shark, which can be found near the Gulf of Mexico, but Navarre Beach Fire Rescue identified it as a great white.
The cause of the animal’s death is unknown, though Navarre Beach Fire Rescue Fire Chief Danny Fureigh told the Pensacola News Journal that the shark did have a few hooks in its mouth. He also noted that while researchers from NOAA would be taking blood samples of the shark, a necropsy would not be performed.
Nexstar’s WKRG reported earlier this month that two anglers set a new record for themselves after catching a great white shark off Navarre Beach. It measured roughly 12 feet long and weighed over 1,100 pounds.
Several massive great white sharks have been pinging off of Florida’s coast recently, Nexstar’s WFLA reports.
According to OCEARCH, an organization that tracks sharks and other marine wildlife, as of February, four great whites have pinged near and around the Southwest Florida waters.
The shark that washed ashore on Friday was scanned for tags, but none were found.
WFLA’s Kaycee Sloan contributed to this report.
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