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.