Mark Spencer has been diving since 1975 and taking photographs underwater since 1978. In 1997 and 1998, Mark led an Australian contingent on two expeditions to Turkey to examine the alleged discovery of the Australian WW1 submarine AE2. This project received Government imprimatur with some financial assistance from the Royal Australian Navy. Mark Spencer’s website contains a lot of magnificent underwater photography taken by himself and his wife Becca Saunders who is also an accomplished diver and underwater photographer.

Mark recently participated in the release of a Grey Nurse Shark tangled in a fishing rope and I spoke to him about this experience:

Mark how did you get involved in the rescue of a Grey Nurse Shark?

I am an underwater photographer and I like photographing marine wildlife and I was out at South Solitary Island a couple of weeks ago diving a popular diving spot called Manta Arch where Grey Nurse Sharks congregate.

One of the sharks I noticed had a rope wrapped around its tail. The rope had been cut and the free end was very frayed. The knot was a noose-type of knot which looked very tight around the shark’s tail. The shark looked very sick. It was not looking very well at all.

I took photographs of it that time and then saw it a week later, the rope was still around its tail and it had a fungus on its back. It was swimming upside down and rubbing its back on the sandy floor, as if trying to get the fungus off its back.

How did it get the rope around it in the first place?

The best I can presume, because I have seen this before and photographed it, is that when fishermen catch these sharks on their hooks they release them, because by law they are supposed to release them, and to secure the shark close to the boat to be able to release the hook they put a rope noose-knot around the tail to hold the shark. Once that knot tightens they can’t release it easily so they cut the rope. What they don’t realize it that the noose-knot is a tight knot and it invariably ulcerates the skin of the shark and the shark will end up dying if they are not rescued.

A couple of years ago I photographed a shark, notified Marine Parks Authority, and they couldn’t find the shark. That shark wasn’t looking very good either. So I presume that one is dead. In this case we had success.

How did you get the knot off the shark?

The shark was actually swimming very close to me. One could almost get the impression it was saying “Get this knot off me“. I was actually able to hold on to the rope while the tail was still moving. I tried to cut the rope with my sharp knife but there were a lot of barnacles on the rope and that prevented the knife from being able to cut into the rope. Also I was a bit concerned about the shark turning around and biting me, even though it did allow me to hold on to the rope and the tail more or less and try to cut it.

So I notified one of my friends at the Marine Park Authority, Brett Vercoe, and he came out with a sharp special tool which they use for disentangling whales caught in nets and things. He tried this knife, a week after I first saw the shark, and the knife broke as he tried to cut it.

So he went back again a couple of days later with a similar tool and he successfully managed to get the knife to go through the rope thereby releasing the shark from that predicament.

It just swam off?

It swam off. It got back into it’s normal swimming pattern very quickly. When he pulled on the pole that had the knife on the end the shark did bend around to have a look and see what was going on. As the shark bent around the rope cut through and released and the shark just went back to its normal swimming pattern. It wasn’t angry or anything. I think it must have felt quite a sense of relief.

We talk a lot about humans having stress but obviously fish, like sharks, can be stressed as well.

I believe they are and when you are a diver you are right there with them. You are looking into the eyes. You are probably as close as you can to actually gauging the best sense to wellness or sense of being of that shark. It really saddens me. I feel very affected when I see this sort of thing because I think that is our impact on wildlife and it is a distressing thing for me to see.

What steps should fishermen and others that use the marine environment take to prevent sharks from getting into this predicament again?

Obviously they have to secure the shark to release the hooks and things. I would like to see fishermen use a different kind of rope knot maybe one that easily secures the shark in minimal time, because it is a very stressful thing for the fishermen too, but a knot that can be easily released. This means that the rope does not have to be left on the tail. If somehow people can work that out, whether fishermen among themselves or marine scientists, and can educate the fishermen it would be a good thing.

Thank you Mark and congratulations on a successful outcome.

View a Video of the Rescue:

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