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A CANOEIST has expressed disgust over a severed shark’s head, thought to be that of a tiger shark, left floating at Speers Point. Kieran Wicks was about to paddle onto Lake Macquarie around 4pm last Thursday when he saw the head, which he at first thought was a cushion, floating upside down. “It kind of upset me. There was no need for someone to leave it like that,” Mr Wicks, of Wallsend, said. “What I also got from this is what’s in the lake?” While it was difficult to tell the shark’s species without a closer examination, a NSW Department of Primary Industries spokesman said, “it is believed the remains are that of a tiger shark”. “Tiger sharks are not a protected species, and there are no size limit requirements,” the spokeswoman said. “[The government] encourages all fishers to fish and dispose of their waste thoughtfully.” Mr Wicks’s grisly find came after a group of fishermen posed with a possible world record 625.5-kilogram tiger shark they had caught on only a 15-kilogram line off Swansea. The Herald is not suggesting the fishermen who caught the tiger shark had anything to do with the floating shark head at Speers Point. The men’s photo quickly appeared on several fishing sites, featured in the Newcastle Herald, and went viral. Local fishermen responded to questions posed by the Herald by claiming the media incited “greenies” and “do-gooders” and placed pressure on governments to change angling laws. Mr Wicks said he believed the way the shark’s head had been discarded had shown contempt for the animal and for the residents of Speers Point. “It was strange. I’ve never seen anything like it in the water before,” Mr Wicks, who filmed his find on his phone, said. “The mentality of the people who did this is concerning.” As part of the state’s government’s online responsible fishing guidelines, anglers who keep their catches are told to “dispatch all fish and invertebrates swiftly and humanely” and “dispose of all litter and fish waste responsibly”. Tiger sharks can grow more than six metres long and weigh 900 kilograms.

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