Two young adults acquired a bull shark from a stranger who caught it in Mayport previous week and then they gutted it and saved the dead fish with ice overnight at a friend’s house prior to hoisting it from the rafters at Ponte Vedra Significant School as a senior prank, in accordance to an incident report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission obtained Wednesday by Information4JAX.
College officers explained that 5 Ponte Vedra Significant students have been determined by investigators as owning hoisted the useless shark at the school on Davis Park Road. The FWC report lists two 17-year-olds and three 18-calendar year-olds as being included, as nicely as a 19-12 months-aged.
The report displays a person of the 18-12 months-olds advised an FWC investigator that he and a further just one of the 17-calendar year-olds ended up fishing in Mayport on May possibly 3 when, around 8 p.m., a guy upcoming to them caught a bull shark. He explained they requested the male if they could maintain the shark, and he gave it to them. The teenager explained they desired to use it for a senior prank, so they gutted it and then saved it in the 19-yr-old’s garden with ice.
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The 17-calendar year-previous who was also fishing in Mayport mentioned they purchased the shark for $100 from the stranger, according to the FWC report. He also advised the investigator that he drove the shark in his truck bed from the friend’s household to the faculty the subsequent night.
About 9 p.m. May 4, in accordance to the FWC report, the 18-calendar year-old and 17-calendar year-old who obtained the shark and three other teenagers, ages 17 and 18, went by way of an open up gate by the back of the college, rolled the shark in and lifted it onto the rafters utilizing a pulley technique. and ladder. The 19-calendar year-old was the lookout at a close by Gate gasoline station in situation anybody drove into the faculty, according to the report.
The report doesn’t say who killed the shark.
The next morning, according to the FWC report, a 63-yr-aged Ponte Vedra Significant upkeep employee arrived at do the job around 7:30 a.m. May well 5 and found a useless shark hanging from the rafters off the stairway in the entrance courtyard. He positioned a dumpster underneath the shark and lower the ropes holding it. He told the FWC investigator that the shark landed in the dumpster and was then taken to a landfill by the upkeep crew. From there, the shark was placed on a truck all over 8:30 a.m. and moved to Georgia for disposal.
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The investigator for FWC, which is major the investigation, gathered images of the shark hanging from the rafters at the school and despatched them to two of the agency’s maritime shark biologists, who did verify the shark was a bull shark.
“The shark was identified as a Bull Shark, which is authorized to possess. The lawful dimension restrict for a Bull Shark is 54 inches. Dependent on the photographs supplied by students, I identified the Bull Shark to be about the legal size of 54 inches,” the FWC investigator wrote in the report.
In accordance to the FWC site, harvestable Group 2 sharks — seven species that include bull sharks — have a 54 inch (fork duration) minimal sizing limit.
The report mentioned that no resource-connected violations were being uncovered and that this data was introduced to the Point out Attorney’s Office environment, which agreed.
The college on Wednesday sent a assertion to Information4JAX expressing, “The shark was eliminated prior to notification to FWC. This was a exclusive scenario and as you can consider not a person that the employees at PVHS has encountered prior to. They required to avoid developing a demanding predicament for any individuals or pupils arriving on campus.”
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In accordance to the St. Johns County University District, outcomes have been used for a amount 4 self-control — which consists of no senior calendar year things to do, like graduation, required suspension, achievable expulsion and more.
Meanwhile, OneProtest, an animal advocacy team, started off an on the web petition on modify.org calling for signatures in assist of searching for costs towards the 5 learners recognized by investigators.
And PETA (People today for the Ethical Treatment method of Animals) explained it despatched a letter to St. Johns County Superintendent Tim Forson on Tuesday supplying lessons on kindness to animals following the incident.
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