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Beached shark finds sanctuary in Manly swimming rockpool

The shark swims in Fairy Bower Pool after it was moved in a sling.

The shark swims in Fairy Bower Pool after it was moved in a sling. Photo: Twitter @AlexMartiniuk

It’s the most Australian photo ever – a couple of beach bums sunning themselves in Sydney as a shark circles just metres away in a rockpool for swimmers.

The shark in question first washed up on the popular Manly Beach about midday, and you could have forgiven people for keeping their distance.

Dan Korocz was among the stunned onlookers who saw the predator thrashing in the shallows.

“When you see a real-life shark, it’s scary,” he said.

“We were down on the beach for lunch with my family.

“I’ve got a four-year-old and a two-year-old and we went down to the waters’ edge and then it came in.”

Witnesses described the shark as about 1.5m in size, and said it appeared to have a broken jaw.

Mr Korocz said the shark kept beaching itself on the sand, and that’s where staff from the Manly Sea Life Sanctuary stepped in.

The trained professionals used a sling to move the animal to the nearby Fairy Bower Pool, where it is being monitored.

Don’t try and move sharks yourself

A spokesman for the sanctuary urged people to resist the temptation to help animals in distress, and instead call in the professionals.

“We usually get callouts for turtles and any sort of marine life around the area, so we take them in if needed, rehabilitate them and release them,” they said.

“It’s best to call someone who knows what they’re doing. You don’t know if its injured and if it is you might make it worse.”

Alex Martiniuk watched the shark get moved.

“I was on a jog and they were rescuing the shark in a sling, it looked a bit like a stretcher,” she said.

“I went down to the Bower Pool in Manly to do my stretching and then the people from the Sea Life Sanctuary asked for a couple of strong volunteers to help carry the shark into the pool.

“They looked like they were just there assessing it, and the pool is closed so they would probably have to carry it out of there.

“It was a fair size.”

-ABC

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