The Greenland shark was spotted by a walker on a beach at Newlyn Harbour near Penzance on Sunday, March 13.
Cornwall Wildlife Trust's Marine Strandings Network was contacted and arrived at the beach within an hour, but the tide had come in and washed the shark back out into the sea. This sparked an urgent appeal to search for the shark.
Mermaid Pleasure Trips crew, in evening found and brought ashore the dead Greenland shark which previously stranded on Sunday and then washed back out to sea.
As the name suggests, Greenland sharks are native to the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans.
Prior to this shark, there has only ever been one Greenland shark found in UK waters - in 2013 - which was also dead.
Remarkably, the Greenland shark has the longest known lifespan of all vertebrate species with one creature estimated to live between 250 and 500 years.
The Greenland shark is one of the largest living species of shark. It usually grows 6.4 m (21 ft) long and weighs 1,000 kg and possibly up to 7.3 m (24 ft) and more than 1,400 kg.
Overfishing and climate change are the main driving factors of Greenland shark diminishing numbers.
"The crew managed to safely get a tow established with the shark and bring the shark gently back into the harbour.
Cornwall Wildlife Trust's Marine Strandings Network was contacted and arrived at the beach within an hour, but the tide had come in and washed the shark back out into the sea. This sparked an urgent appeal to search for the shark.
Mermaid Pleasure Trips crew, in evening found and brought ashore the dead Greenland shark which previously stranded on Sunday and then washed back out to sea.
As the name suggests, Greenland sharks are native to the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans.
While they can be found in deep waters around the UK, the Marine Conservation Society says it is very rare for humans to come across them in British waters.
Prior to this shark, there has only ever been one Greenland shark found in UK waters - in 2013 - which was also dead.
Remarkably, the Greenland shark has the longest known lifespan of all vertebrate species with one creature estimated to live between 250 and 500 years.
The Greenland shark is one of the largest living species of shark. It usually grows 6.4 m (21 ft) long and weighs 1,000 kg and possibly up to 7.3 m (24 ft) and more than 1,400 kg.
Overfishing and climate change are the main driving factors of Greenland shark diminishing numbers.
"The crew managed to safely get a tow established with the shark and bring the shark gently back into the harbour.
It was then handed over to the team at Marine Strandings Network to be sent off for a Post Mortem to hopefully establish the facts and figures about this gracious granddad/grandma shark."
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Source: CornwallLive, Marine Strandings, Pexels, Wikipedia
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