The Prize for Internet Villains of the Week goes to two fishermen who posted a clip of themselves dragging a large live shark behind their speedboat at speed, off the coast of Florida. The shocking footage was posted on Instagram by charter boat captain Mark Quartiano after one of the men in the video sent him the footage.
An outraged Quartiano posted the footage to condemn these two individuals for abusing the poor shark. While sport fishing is legal and constitute an important business in Florida, animal abuse is not. Commenting on the video, a disgusted Quartino stated that being dragged like that, the shark will eventually drown and be ripped to pieces by the speed of the boat.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have confirmed they are investigating the incident, and hope to identify the men involved, to be able to determine if they have committed any specific chargeable violations.
This sad episode happened during the Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week programming block, which was criticised for being too sensationalist when it first started, but is now going the extra mile to help raise awareness and educate people about the importance of sharks in our oceans, and the fact that they are not scary man-eating machines.
Hopefully these two individuals will be brought to justice over their animal cruelty. If you have any information about these two individuals, call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-3922 or send an email to Tip@MyFWC.com.
You can check out the original report by CBS Miami here.
