A second shark found belted in plastic strap that was cutting it in half as it grew

Yet another North Atlantic shark has been found belted by a plastic strap cutting it in half as it grew.

The 6-foot porbeagle was caught off New England by researcher James Sulikowski, who says he immediately noticed “an unusual injury” just below the predator’s gills.

“A piece of circular plastic had become lodged around her neck when she was younger. As she grew, it began to cut through her skin into her muscle,” he said in an Oct. 27 Facebook post. “If we had not removed it, she surely would have died.”

The 6-year-old female shark had been stuck in the strap for at least six months — long enough for the plastic to dig half an inch deep, Sulikowski told McClatchy News. Video posted on Facebook shows it created a circular gash exposing the shark’s white and pink insides.

It marks the second time in 16 months the Sulikowski Shark and Fish Conservation Lab has found a shark with a plastic trap stuck around its gills.

The earlier incident involved a 7-foot porbeagle that was likely trapped for years, Sulikowski told McClatchy News. The strap was removed and the shark, named Destiny, continues to show up on satellite tracking.

Sulikowski says the two sharks were captured about 120 miles apart, but he believes they got entangled doing the same thing: “Probably eating bait boxes and getting the straps around their heads.”

Both cases illustrate the growing threat of plastic left floating “across broad areas” of the ocean, Sulikowski says.

Porbeagles are a coastal species known to reach nearly 7 feet and 300 pounds in the north Atlantic, according to Oceana.org. The largest ever found was 11.7 feet long and they have been known to “live an average of 46 years,” the site reports.

The Sulikowski Shark and Fish Conservation Lab, based at Arizona State University, has been trapping and tagging porbeagle sharks as part of a larger collaboration with NOAA Fisheries “to update the biology and ecology of the species in U.S. waters.”

He reports the lab recently captured four pregnant porbeagles off New England and fitted them with satellite tags that will supply data on their horizontal movements, depth and temperatures.

This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 9:24 AM with the headline "A second shark found belted in plastic strap that was cutting it in half as it grew."