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Australian tourist Nash Core and his young son joined forces with a group of locals to rescue a great white shark stranded in shallow waters, helping it back into the ocean.
Drone footage shot by the duo showed them assisting the distressed animal return to deep water from a sand bank with the help of three local men. The rescue effort on Tuesday near the coastal town of Ardrossan in south Australia lasted almost an hour.
Mr Core said he spotted the men trying to help the stranded shark during a caravan tour around Australia with his wife, Ash Core, and their sons, Parker, 11, and Lennox, 7. The family were visiting from the Gold Coast in Queensland.
“We were just going out to do some crab breaking on the low tide and we came around the headland and seen a few people just looking over and we're like, 'Oh, what's happening?". So, we looked over and we seen this shark in the shallows. So, I ran and got my drone and flew it over for a bit of a closer look and we noticed that it was really struggling,” he told ABC Australia.
He and Parker rushed to help the local men rescue the animal. “It was either sick or just tired. We definitely got it into some deeper water, so hopefully it is still swimming,” Mr Core said.
Reflecting upon their experience, he said: “To be honest, I did have some thoughts about, ‘Oh, why am I going out here?’ As we were going out, my young son, Parker, turned to me and said, ‘My heart’s pounding’. I said, ‘Yeah, mine is beating pretty fast too.’”
The local men were using crab rakes, a garden rake-like tool used to dig small crabs from sand, to help the shark back into deeper water as the father and son arrived.
“They got it into deeper water where I thought it’s probably not a good idea to go any further. That’s its territory and I’ll stay back,” Mr Core said.
The local rescuers later told Mr Core they had never seen a beached shark before.
According to marine wildlife experts, shark strandings, while not common, were becoming more visible because of social media.
There could be several reasons why marine animals like sharks might strand, including illness and injury, Vanessa Pirotta, wildlife scientist at Macquarie University, said.
The shark could also have chased prey into the shallows, she said. “If you see something like this, human safety comes first and foremost,” Ms Pirotta said, advising to contact environmental authorities “who will get someone appropriate to come and assist”.
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