A shark found on a street is prompting fishy theories about how it got more than 100km inland to Lake Taupo.
A Turangi woman found the dead shark on the road outside the town's visitor centre and its appearance on Sunday night has piqued the interest oflocals.
Despite rumours it ended its days in a local fish and chip shop, the shark's undignified final resting place was actually a Taupo District Council offal pit.
No one has owned up to dumping the shark, but several theories have emerged as to how it got there.
Taupo District Council Turangi/Tongariro area manager John Campbell yesterday cheekily fingered global warming as the reason for the shark's presence in the town.
"With global warming there's high tides and they've found sharks in Lake Taupo," he alleged.
'That's the first one that's been recovered from Lake Taupo. It swam up the Waikato River and got to Taupo.
"They [the successful shark-fishers] wanted to make it public so that people could see the first shark caught in Lake Taupo. It's a bit of a fishy story."
Mr Campbell said it was also possible it could be a practical joke.
"Someone went fishing on the weekend and came home with a shark and must have dumped it off there for a lark.
"No one's owned up to it yet but it's a small town, I'm sure it will come out eventually."
Turangi police were unable to shed any light on the mystery, saying dead sharks were not really their department. Staff at the Turangi Visitor Centre were also at a loss, surmising the shark had fallen off the back of a truck.
Rotorua senior Fish and Game officer Rob Pitkethley agreed.
He said sharks could not survive in fresh water and believed if it hadn't come off the back of a truck, it would have come from somewhere similar.
"I think it fell off a back of a truck, or someone threw it off. That's the only way a shark could've got there in my opinion, unless it fell out of a plane," Mr Pitkethley said.
