Celebrity shark placed in quarantine

BIOLOGISTS caught a 2m shark that had become a tourist attraction by making daily incursions into knee-high water on a Spanish beach, wrestling it with their bare hands and dragging it ashore.

The 50kg sandbar shark — not generally associated with attacks on humans — first showed up early last week at a beach called Miracle in north-east Tarragona province, forcing authorities to close off the water to bathers.

The fish turned into a novelty by swimming regularly into plain view in shallow water. Bathers gathered daily to take photographs.

A team of three biologists from the Barcelona Aquarium waded in on Monday and, after two failed attempts before a crowd of hundreds, finally managed to capture the flailing shark with their hands. They quickly stuck its snout into a net to keep it from biting.

Two of the rescuers were slightly injured with cuts and scratches from the shark’s fins.

The team put the fish into a tank and trucked it for a police-escorted ride to the aquarium and a medical check-up.

“It will be in quarantine, just as would be done with a sick person,” aquarium director Jordi Ingles said.

He said the shark would be returned to the open sea if biologists determined it is healthy.