A 12-foot great white shark that washed up on a Massachusetts beach this week had to be hauled away on a tow truck, graphic photos show.
The Orleans Police Department shared pictures of the bloodied and battered shark lying on its side with its jaws agape on the bed of a recovery tow truck after beach patrol discovered the 1,240-pound fish on Nauset Beach on Cape Cod Tuesday morning.
“Not one of our typical calls service. Nor is it one for our local duty tow,” the department said in a Facebook post.
“But, as always, we answered the call. You really never know what kind of call you’ll respond to on any given shift.”
Dennis Reed, who operates Nauset Recovery Inc., was tasked with hauling the carcass away to the Orleans transfer station, where the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy performed a necropsy, the Cape Cod Times reported.
He said the shark’s mouth was bloody but its fins were still intact.
“There were no bite marks or anything on it,” Reed told the outlet.
“It seemed like it had a lot of internal bleeding because there was a lot of blood around its mouth.”
The Conservancy confirmed in a Facebook post Wednesday the dead shark is a mature male predator that was previously identified in 2022 and named Koala.
The organization said it is not yet known how the shark died.
“There are no obvious signs of how or why Koala died. Further testing will have to be done to find a cause of death,” the organization posted.
“As it is incredibly sad that a white shark has died, samples of organs, tissues, vertebrate sections, and more are used to further the knowledge of this species.”
