A Palm Beach County, Fla., woman got quite the shock when she spotted a 5-foot shark in her friend's condo's swimming pool, according to CBS News. The shark almost died as a result of the incident.
Nicole Bonk was visiting friends at the Mariner's Cay condo when she saw the blacktip shark, which had been dumped in the pool as a prank by a pair of teenage boys, according to the San Francisco Gate. She told reporters that the creature still had hooks in its mouth at the time.
"These two kids, they came back from fishing and threw this half-dead creature into the pool as a prank," said Bonk, according to the San Francisco Gate. "They left the shark in the pool to die. I think they're terrible children because it's animal cruelty."
Bonk and her husband pulled the shark out of the pool and released it into the Intracoastal Waterway, according to the San Francisco Gate. Bonk's husband held the shark by the tail in the water in an attempt to try and flush out some of the chlorine-filled pool water, but officials believe that its exposure to chlorine probably killed it shortly afterwards, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
Video surveillance cameras surround the pool area and the incident is currently under investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
Blacktip sharks are common in the area and have been known to bite humans in murky water. They are classed as "near threatened" on the IUCN Red List because of their preference for shallow and inshore waters, making them highly sensitive to human-induced habitat alteration and fishing pressures.
