15-foot Long Shark Dies on Pender Harbour Beach
June 20, 2011
A female sixgill shark weighing 1600-2000 pounds and measuring 14'-10" from head to tail was stranded on the beach in Garden Bay in Pender Harbour June 20. Efforts to keep the shark alive until high tide failed.
The shark was discovered next to the Seattle Yacht Club outstation in Garden Bay. Vladimir Horicky, the outstation manager, worked with a neighbor to pour water on the shark in the futile effort to keep it alive. Fisheries people were called, and came aboard a barge owned by Bob Fielding, a Pender Harbour waterfront construction man. They performed an autopsy on the dead shark, establishing its sex and estimated weight.
Little is known about sixgill sharks, except that more of their relatives are extinct than living. They are primarily deepwater bottom dwellers, and it is unusual to find one on a beach. Sixgill sharks are not dangerous to humans.
Vera and Vladimir Horicky took photos of the rescue effort. It happened that we arrived in Garden Bay when the barge with a number of Fisheries people aboard were there. I thought they were a construction crew and motored the dinghy right past them as we went to shop in Madeira Park. A great story was taking place in front of me, and I didn’t know it.
—Bob Hale
