Normally, seeing a shark at the beach is a sign of danger. Sharks have gained a reputation for being dangerous, thanks to movies like Jaws, Discovery Channel's Shark Week, and other productions portraying these toothed swimmers as fearsome villains.
But, for California native, Liza Phillips, encountering a great white at a Massachusetts beach was an opportunity for altruism, People reports.
A beached shark
On Friday, August 16, Phillips was playing catch with her dad at a beach in Nantucket, Massachusetts, when she saw what she thought was a beached whale.
“I was tossing the football with my dad and he looked down the beach and said ‘Oh there’s a beached whale’!” Phillips told the Nantucket Current. “I grabbed my phone and started sprinting down the beach, and as soon as I got close enough to see it, I said ‘Oh my god’.”
From close up, it became clear to Phillips that this was no whale. Video from the incident shows the shark tossing and turning in the shallow water as it struggled to free itself.
Despite the great whites’ notoriety, it was hard not to pity it in that state, Phillips told WCVB. “I want it to survive,” Phillips explained.
"You think of a great white as a predator, a beast, a monster, but watching it in that position, I was like, 'Oh my God, this is really sad,’” Phillips explained to WCVB.
Freeing the whale
Phillips and her friend, Ted Rock decided they would try and save the shark. They were nervous to approach such a fearsome and dangerous creature, but as Phillips told WCVB, "I could tell it was really in a weakened state. I could tell it was not OK, and just giving it a shove and immediately running out does not feel crazy to me because there was no way it was going to turn around and bite my leg off."
“Definitely, there was some adrenaline involved,” she added in a comment to the Nantucket Current. Phillips and Rock approached the writhing shark and gently and gingerly nudged it until it was in deep enough water to swim away. “Touching a great white?” Philipps told the Nantucket Current. “That’s not even something you put on a bucket list because it’s just so unbelievable.”
A fearsome predator
Even though great white’s preferred prey is not humans, the International Fund for Animal Welfare notes they are still dangerous and may still bite people. Although threatened by overfishing, these creatures inhabit the oceans across the world.
They are without a doubt, the king of the seas. Not only are great whites the biggest predatory fish, weighing up to 5,500 pounds, they can also have up to 300 teeth, organized in as much as seven rows. Great white sharks’ silvery backs help them camouflage on the seafloor. They can swim extremely quickly, allowing them to sneak up on prey. That makes this recuse even more altruistic.
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