'Once-in-a-lifetime' Shark Beheaded After Washing Up on U.K. Beach

A rare shark that washed up on a beach in the U.K. had its head chopped off as it lay on the sand.

The shark was first found intact on Lepe Beach in Hampshire in the U.K. on Saturday, but later was seen to have been decapitated, with the head having been taken along with its fins and tail.

Broadcaster and historian Dan Snow, who lives in the area, initially tweeted a picture of the intact shark. Later, Snow released a video describing how he and some other volunteers had gone to recover the shark for scientific research after a request by Ben Garrod, a professor of evolutionary biology, only to find the head missing.

"We have recovered a good chunk of it but some trophy hunters got there just before us," Snow said in the video. "They took the head, they chopped the head off and the dorsal fin and the tail, which is really really disappointing because the scientists and marine biologists that sent us down there to try and secure this carcass, of this kind of once-in-a-lifetime find in British waters, they were really hoping they would get the teeth and get the head to do isotopic analysis, some really really useful scientific research."

"The shark, identified by marine biologists as a smalltooth sand tiger, is a unique discovery for the U.K. and thought to be the most northerly record of the species to date," John Hourston, founder of marine conservation group Blue Planet Society, told Newsweek.

Smalltooth sand tiger sharks are a rare species of shark, classified as "vulnerable" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. They can grow to lengths of up to 13.5 feet, and have teeth projecting from their large mouths. The shark found in Hampshire was much further north than the species is usually found, with their range generally being limited to the warmer waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the Azores and the Canary Islands.

Their declining population is in large part the result of human activity, as the sharks are often caught as bycatch in gillnets and bottom trawls for other species of fish. They are often kept and sold, as their meat, liver oil, fins and jaws are considered valuable.

Beacuse of their limited numbers, scientists jump at every opportunity to study a specimen of this species, as it may reveal clues about the shark's feeding patterns and preferred water temperatures.

According to Hourston, the shark's presence so far north could be another indicator of the changes in the marine ecosystem caused by climate change.

The shark itself had actually washed up for the first time on Friday, but was dragged back into the water by locals, and swam off into the sea.

"At first I wasn't sure what it could be, but once I got there I could definitely see it was a shark," Alisha Openshaw, a local who helped to pull the shark back into the ocean, told the Mail Online. "It must have been there for a good two hours, and I just can't believe nobody tried to help him."

"I don't want any animal to suffer, I can't even kill a fly myself, and I know I just wanted to save him," she said.

Unfortunately, the shark passed away despite the rescuers' efforts, washing up for the second time on Saturday.

The head, fin and tail of the shark remain missing, but Snow has urged locals to surrender the head so that scientists can examine it.

"If anybody in the local area has the head—you can keep the head, there's no law against that—but can you let the scientists have a look at it first?" Snow said in the video on Twitter.

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