A greenland shark, not looking for moose.
Two men on the northeast coast of Newfoundland saved a greenland shark from choking to death on a chunk of moose. In what is possibly the most Canadian thing that’s ever happened (save for the great maple syrup heist), a Greenland shark beached itself after getting a large chunk of moose stuck in its mouth. It’s speculated that the hungry shark bit off more than he could chew from a nearby bank where hunters gut moose and throw the scraps into the water.
The men, Derrick Chaulk and Jeremy Ball, arrived on scene wearing toques and gumboots and began pulling on the two-foot-long piece of shark bait. “A couple of yanks, and it came right out,” said Chalk to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, like it was a totally normal thing to do. Once the obstruction was cleared, the men tied a rope around the shark’s tail, and began to drag it back out to sea. “He pulled the rope, and I pushed with my boot,” said Chaulk, “and between the two of us we got him out into deeper water.”
After the shark lay in shallow water for a few minutes, it started breathing again. It continued to lie there for almost half an hour, then swam back out to sea.
Greenland sharks aren’t normally seen off of Newfoundland. They are scavengers, usually feeding off food found in shallower water. Which is usually fish, not moose carcasses – although, according the Florida Museum of Natural History, there have been cases of where a Greenland shark has been found with parts of a horse, and in one instance, an entire reindeer.
