{"id":120641,"date":"2025-08-05T10:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T10:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/120641\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T10:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T10:37:08","slug":"baby-shark-washes-up-on-pacific-city-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/120641\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby shark washes up on Pacific City beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roy Cabal was on the beach Sunday in Pacific City when a co-worker alerted him to an unusual sight<\/a> nearby: a shark<\/a> wiggling in the sand. <\/p>\n

The young fish was there for about 20 minutes near Bob Straub State Park <\/b>before waves washed it back out to sea, said Cabal, who works for Twin Creeks Beach and Trail Rides<\/a> in Pacific City. <\/p>\n

In his years working and living near the beach \u2014 he grew up in Pacific City \u2014 Cabal, 48, said he had never seen a shark<\/a> on shore before. <\/p>\n

The shark was around 4 feet long and didn\u2019t appear to be injured, Cabal said.<\/p>\n

Taylor Chapple, an associate professor at Oregon State University who leads the Big Fish Lab<\/a>, said it\u2019s common for sharks to wash ashore this time of year because they can develop <\/b>infections affecting their brain function and ability to swim.<\/p>\n

This salmon shark was likely a newborn, Chapple said. <\/p>\n

Sharks, like humans, are endothermic, so they maintain warmer body temperatures than their surroundings. But some young sharks aren\u2019t quite big enough to maintain \u201cthermal inertia,\u201d he said, sometimes causing them to get caught in colder water and enter cold shock.<\/p>\n

That can cause meningitis, leading to bacterial build-up in the shark\u2019s brain and eventually killing it.<\/p>\n

By the time a salmon shark like the one Cabal saw washes up on shore, it\u2019s past the point of saving, said Chapple, who examined Cabal\u2019s photos.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in such a compromised state that even if you were to take it back out into the ocean, it\u2019s very unlikely to survive,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s best to let nature take its course.\u201d<\/p>\n

If people stumble across sharks on shore in Oregon or Washington, they should call Chapple\u2019s lab or report it to the lab online<\/a>. Then, researchers can collect samples or bring the sharks in for study, Chapple said. <\/p>\n

Typically, the Big Fish Lab receives around 15 to 20 such reports each year, usually in late July and August, he said. This was the first sighting Chapple had heard of this year.<\/p>\n

Salmon sharks are relatives to great white sharks, said Lynn Mattes, who works in the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Department\u2019s marine resources program. They\u2019re common in the Pacific Ocean off Oregon, where they eat salmon.<\/p>\n

Most of these stranded \u201cbaby great white sharks\u201d have parasites in their brains, Mattes said, so it\u2019s best not to poke around or let pets snack on washed-up sharks (though she added that the parasite is not known to be hazardous to humans).<\/p>\n

Instead, Mattes said, report the sighting \u2014 then take it in. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201cnot something everyone gets to see,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Maddie Khaw covers breaking news, public safety and more for The Oregonian\/OregonLive. Reach her at mkhaw@oregonian.com.<\/p>\n

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roy Cabal was on the beach Sunday in Pacific City when a co-worker alerted him to an unusual…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":120642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-120641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114975725528347797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}