Geoff Brooks, a Byron Bay resident, took to Facebook to post photos of a four-metre dead shark that was reportedly pulled out of the water.
He wrote: “Caught off 7 Mile beach over the weekend. Body apparently handed to CSRIO.
“CSIRO says it is a Tiger Shark. But they say they haven’t been contacted about the Tiger Shark.
“As far as I’m aware; it was a kill order on a shark here on the far north coast that was identified as being responsible for a local attack.
“And yes – it’s real.”
(Image courtesy: Facebook)
Brooks told Daily Mail Australia that he did not know if the shark was killed intentionally. He said that it might have been collected from nets in the Lennox Head area. He mentioned that the shark’s body had been handed over to authorities with the CSIRO, but there was no immediate confirmation of this at the time.
A fisherman, known as Matthew, came forward to the Northern Star newspaper and claimed responsibility for the photographs, saying he took them a while ago. “I was the one that took that photo and I was the one that caught that fish. I caught it fourteen miles off Tweed Heads.”
“I just had to confirm with a bloke that it was a Tiger and not a Great White and I used those photos to show him,” said Matthew, whose second name is unknown.
According to the Northern Star, Byron Bay-based group ‘Positive Change for Marine Life’ said that the shark was hauled in off the coast from Pottsville off Nine Mile Beach.
Karl Goodsell, a spokesman for Positive Change for Marine Life, said that the boat seems to be a “licensed commercial shark fishing boat from the ID of the boat.”
“From our perspective, after advice from the Southern Cross University, it looks to be three-and-a-half to four metres long, which would be a sexually mature shark,” Goodsell added. He also said that the commercial fisherman who hauled in the shark would have been operating under Ocean Trap and Line Fishery regulations
A spokesman for CSRIO, Huw Morgan, told Yahoo7 that they “have seen the photos” and “can confirm that it was a dead Tiger Shark.” He also added that they are unaware of the shark’s current whereabouts.
However, Northern Star reported that the whole Tiger Shark was sent to the fish markets, except for the jaws, which Matthew apparently kept as a souvenir.
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