BILLERICA, Mass. (AP) \u2014 Elliot Sudal didn\u2019t need a bigger boat, but he did need to find a way to get a hook out of a shark\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n
Sudal, a veteran angler and boat captain, reeled in the nearly nine-foot shark \u2014 also commonly known as a great white shark or a great white \u2014 on June 7 on Nantucket. White sharks are a protected species in the U.S. and must be released immediately when accidentally caught.<\/p>\n
That presents a nasty problem for a fisherman because the white shark is a formidable apex predator best known for the 1975 movie Jaws, in which Roy Scheider utters the famous line \u201cYou\u2019re gonna need a bigger boat\u201d upon seeing the big fish. Sudal, who caught the shark while fishing from shore, decided to use his encounter to demonstrate how to respond to such a situation.<\/p>\n
Sudal posted a video of himself removing the hook to his social media accounts. In the video, Sudal climbs onto the back of the shark, secures the fish in the surf, and removes the hook from its mouth. By the end of the short video, the shark is back in the water.<\/p>\n
White sharks typically have about 300 teeth arranged into five rows, so speed was key.<\/p>\n
\u201cHooks out and back on her way in 15 seconds, not sure how to do it better,\u201d Sudal wrote in an Instagram post<\/a> that included a video of the shark release.<\/p>\n Sudal is no stranger to sharks, and has caught and tagged hundreds of them over the years. He said in a social media post that this month\u2019s encounter with a white shark was the first time he has ever caught one of them in more than a decade of the work.<\/p>\n Sudal\u2019s practices have sometimes attracted the attention of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, such as in 2017, when the agency investigated his handling of a smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species, in Florida. The agency said in 2018 that it sent Sudal a letter \u201cinforming him of the Endangered Species Act issues and the safe handling protocol for sawfish.\u201d<\/p>\n White sharks are not listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, but are subject to special federal protections. The International Union for Conservation of Nature considers them vulnerable globally.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Sign up for Morning Wire:<\/strong> Sightings of white sharks off New England have ticked up<\/a> in recent years, and some scientists have pinned that to the greater availability of the seals that they prey on. Dangerous encounters between white sharks and humans are extremely rare, and only a few dozen fatal white shark bites on people have ever been recorded.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.<\/p>\n
\n Our flagship newsletter breaks down the biggest headlines of the day.\n <\/p>\n