Seaside Aquarium performs public necropsy after thresher shark washes ashore

By KPTV Staff

Click here for updates on this story

    OCEAN PARK, Washington (KPTV) — People enjoying the Labor Day weekend had quite the memorable experience in southwest Washington, when Seaside Aquarium staff performed a public necropsy on a shark that washed ashore.

The Seaside Aquarium said staff was alerted Friday night of a large thresher shark washing in on the Long Beach Peninsula by Ocean Park. The shark was reportedly still alive but died shortly after staff arrived.

The shark, which weighed about 300 to 365 pounds, was too big to freeze so a necropsy was scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

“We really wanted this to be a learning experience for people. It is not very often that we get to see these large sharks, and anything we can learn or educate the public on is a great opportunity,” the aquarium said in a Facebook post.

The aquarium said about 50 to 75 people attended the public necropsy.

“People were really interested and asked a lot of great questions,” the aquarium said. “Most people were fascinated by the length of the shark’s tail, in which it is named after. The thresher shark uses its long tail to ‘thrash’ through schools of fish, stunning them, then swimming back through and eating the stunned fish.”

Just last month, another thresher shark washed ashore and Seaside Aquarium staff dissected the shark near Cranberry Beach.

It’s not known at this time why the sharks are washing in. The aquarium said it is important to be able to collect data and various tissue and organ samples.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.