Gulf fishermen catch pregnant hammerhead

Gulf fishermen catch pregnant hammerhead, deliver baby sharks on the beach

Florida fishermen have delivered dozens of baby sharks on the beach after discovering the hammerhead they pulled out of the Gulf was pregnant.

Video shows the 12-foot shark, caught by fisherman Noe Campus, 21, off Sharky's Pier near Sarasota, Florida, with a huge hole it its belly. Campus said he thinks it was attacked by another shark that took a hunk out of its side while it was on his line.

"When it was out there, I saw my fish, I knew it was a hammerhead, behind it I'm guessing there was something bigger," he said.

After a two-hour battle, the anglers finally got the hammerhead to shore where they noticed its injury.

Friends looked on in amazement as Campus started pulling shark pups out intact and rushing them to the water so they could swim away.

"I saw the stomach start moving – I saw a little tail sticking out of the hole where the other shark bit it – I started pulling out the babies so at least those can live," he said.

Campus estimates his group pulled out at least 20 pups, which were moving with their tiny baby hammerheads ready for the water.

According to the Underwater Times, in previous cases hammerheads have been caught pregnant ready to give birth to more than 50 pups.

Campus says he intended to release the mother shark and kept her head in the water to try to keep her alive while they performed the emergency shark C-section, but the mother shark did eventually die.

Original Article


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