Great White Shark Rescue: Beachgoers Attempt To Save Stranded Predator

Heroic Beachgoers Frantically Attempt To Rescue 2,000lbs Great White Shark
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Dozens of beachgoers have come together to attempt to save a 14-ft great white shark after it found itself washed up onto the sand at Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Helpless and suffocating, the predator was helped by onlookers as they doused it with water and dug a trench extending out to sea.

They wrapped a rope around the animal before pulling the shark, believed to weigh 2,000lbs (900kg) back into the ocean.

Dozens of beach-goers attempt to pull the shark back into the sea

Video footage of the rescue operation shows the crowd cheering and whooping as a mass of people grab onto the rope and begin pulling.

Robyn Schnaible, who filmed the ordeal wrote on Vimeo that the rescuers tied one end of the rope around its tail while the other end was attached to a boat.

An official can be seen shouting at those gathered at the spot in order to disperse the crowd away from the shore.

Sadly, despite the enormous efforts of passersby, the shark died shortly after.

Greg Skomal, a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, told the Boston Globe that the results of an autopsy on showed that the creature had bled internally under its own weight while it was stranded.

The shark was the second to become beached in Cape Cod this summer. In July, the 7.5ft male was saved using the method employed to help the 14ft shark.