Chinese Fisherman Whale Shark: 16-Foot Whale Shark Caught By Fisherman, Transported By Small Truck [Photo]
A Chinese fisherman caught a whale shark and drove the 16-foot creature to a nearby market to try and sell it. According to the Mail Online, Cai Chengzhu, 48, was somehow able to get the shark onto the shore and then to the street where he strapped it to a truck and drove it in town. While it is illegal to capture (and sell) the endangered mammal, Chengzhu claims that the whale was dead by the time he reached the market. The fisherman claims that the whale shark got tangled in his fishing net — and that he had no idea that it was a whale shark to begin with.
“The giant creature broke our net and got inside to eat the fish we caught. As you can see it had eaten a fair few but after being trapped in the net, it had died.”
The Chinese fisherman drove the whale shark about 10 miles before reaching the town of Shishi. While he was hoping to score about 10,000 to 20,000 yuan ($1,600 to $3,000), the sea creature was worth far less because it had died along the way. Despite the strict laws that restrict the sale of whale sharks in the country, Chengzhu could have been offered about 1,000 yuan (about $160) for the animal because it was dead.
“By the time we managed to free it, sadly it was too late. It was really unfortunate and we did our best to free it, but having caught it and because it was already dead, it seemed a shame to waste it. I asked the fish market officials that monitor this sort of thing, and they said that as it was already dead when we caught it and as it was there we may as well sell it.”
The Chinese fisherman’s whale shark weighed an estimated two tons according to Yahoo! News. Naturally, there are a lot of people who find Chengzhu’s story hard to believe. For starters, whale sharks are “filter feeders” and would not be snooping around a fisherman’s net looking for food, generally speaking. It does sound like Chengzhu was trying to get rich fast — and it’s still unclear how he managed to get the extant fish species to shore, never mind on land and on top of his truck — the pictures don’t even look real!
Images of the below Whaleshark are causing quite a stir! Read the full story at: http://t.co/a31nv6rx15 #whalesharks pic.twitter.com/zjRIdfdgSf
— Save Our Seas (@saveourseas) August 4, 2014
Whale sharks aren’t considered dangerous to humans. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, a teen made headline news when he jumped into Florida waters and swam with a whale shark. Check out that video here.
[Photo courtesy of Yahoo! News]
