Great White caught off Takapuna beach

By TONY WALL

Two men who found a great white shark entangled in their snapper net off Takapuna Beach brought the potential man-eater to shore and tried to revive it.

Peter Jones and his mate Branko Vela found the shark in their net just 300m off the Takapuna boat ramp last Friday morning.

It is rare for great whites, also known as white pointers, to be found so close to urban Auckland.

However, shark expert Andrew Christie, of Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World, says the public have nothing to fear.

The shark was 2.6m long and weighed about 225kg - half the size of the monsters spotted off Gisborne and the eastern Bay of Plenty in recent weeks.

Mr Christie said last night that the shark would have been a juvenile great white, possibly five to 10 years old.

Mr Jones, aged 69, said he got a shock when he found the shark tangled in the net.

"Normally a shark will go straight through a net like this but he must have come in sideways and rolled. The net was wrapped around him five or six times. He was half-drowned, all groggy and waterlogged."

The men tied a rope around the shark's tail and towed it to the boat ramp, then unravelled the net.

"He was still moving his jaws and tail a bit. We tried to revive him - we had him pointed out to sea so the water could go through his gills - but he just didn't respond."

Four adults tried to lift the shark, "but we couldn't budge him - he was a big lump of fish."

Mr Jones said up to 200 people gathered around and started taking photographs. "We had a couple of greenies start abusing us for hurting a poor fish."

When it was clear the shark was not going to recover, the men towed it back to sea.

"He's fish-food now," said Mr Jones, who added that it was worrying that other great whites might be in the area.

"There's a swimming club that comes down here every week; about 100 of them in black wetsuits ... They could be mistaken for a seal. This shark would have been capable of killing you or taking a leg or arm off."

Mr Jones said bystanders thought the shark was a mako or bronze whaler, but he compared photographs to ones in a book and decided it was a great white.

Mr Christie agreed. He said the shark was a juvenile great white which had probably been chasing fish.

It was rare to see a great white near the Waitemata, but the public had nothing to worry about.

"The sharks have always been there. The thing is the human population has swelled. There's a lot more people out there on the water so there's more sightings."