A shark was found in a condo pool in Florida earlier this month after two boys were spotted dropping the creature there in an apparent prank.
Nicole Bonk witnessed the shark drop-off at the Mariner's Cay
condominiums in Hypoluxo and told the Sun-Sentinel that the five-foot blacktip shark appeared "barely" alive when the suspects dumped it in the pool around 11 p.m., hooks still in its mouth.
"These two kids, they came back from fishing and threw this half-dead creature into the pool as a prank," she told the newspaper. "They left the shark in the pool to die. I think they're terrible children because it's animal cruelty."
Bonk and her husband managed to remove the shark from the pool and carry it to the nearby Intracoastal Waterway before releasing it.
"We tried to revive him but he mostly likely did not live," she told the Sun-Sentinel. "He was barely moving after the trauma. We did our best to try to save this creature."
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials did not arrive until the next morning after Bonk contacted them. The agency told the newspaper that it is investigating the incident and trying to locate video surveillance of the pool area.
Blacktip sharks are found in warm coastal waters, often in bays, estuaries, coral reefs, and the shallow waters off
beaches and river mouths, according to National Geographic.
They can grow up to eight feet long and weigh as much as 220 pounds. Some blacktip sharks migrate to cooler waters near places like Cape Cod, Massachusetts, during the summer, NatGeo said.
According to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Fisheries website, the blacktip shark typically reaches maturity at about four to five years and can live longer than 10 years.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.