Colleen Dunn first thought the animal on the sand at Nehalem Bay State Park in Oregon, US, was a baby great white — but upon closer inspection realised it was a little salmon shark
Colleen Dunn managed to film the salmon shark before she rescued it(Image: AP)
A brave mum saved a shark’s life — after finding it struggling on a beach.
Colleen Dunn saw the salmon shark was suffocating in a low tide and, despite her nerves, grabbed it by the tail to ease the animal to deeper water. The mum of three was walking her dogs at the time of the encounter at Nehalem Bay State Park in Oregon, but the two pooches waited patiently while Colleen helped the shark.
The animal lover was determined not to let the shark die, and wrestled with her fears before carefully picking the creature up. Incredibly, she even managed to catch a glimpse of her encounter on her mobile phone camera.
Colleen, whose video shows the salmon shark swim safely out of view, said: “I was essentially nervous about touching it at all. I have three kids so I didn’t wanna put myself in a dangerous position.”
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Colleen’s fears were heightened after the death of a 40-year-old man made global headlines recently. He was attacked off the coast of Israel by a spieces of shark previously thought to have been harmless.
But plucky Colleen, a huge nature lover, overcame her worry because she was desperate for the shark not to perish. She said she told herself: “He’s got to get to water. If he dies, at least like I did my part to help him get to the water.”
The mum continued: “Like, I’m the type of person, if there’s a caterpillar on the trail that I’m hiking, I move it off the trail… Whether you’re supposed to do that or not, like, I just can’t be the one to allow something to die on my watch.” The animal was able to recover its sense to swim out to the ocean within 10 minutes of Colleen’s intervention, she said.
Salmon sharks are known for their ability to regulate body temperature, allowing them to hunt in colder waters, but young sharks often struggle with maintaining thermal inertia, making them susceptible to cold shock.
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Colleen first thought she had found a baby great white. They are often the same size of small salmon sharks, which can grow to up to at least 3.0 m (10ft) in length and 450kg (992lb). Taylor Chapple, an associate professor at Oregon State University, explained that once a shark reaches shore, it’s often too compromised to survive.
The man in Israel died after he was swimming and filming about 100m from the shore in Hadera off the coast of Israel, and became suddenly surrounded by dusky sharks. Witnesses at the scene said that a shark appeared to lunge at the man’s GoPro camera before he was then heard to be shouting: “Help… they’re biting me”.