PHOTO: Baby Shark Saved at Nassau Point

In her eight years living on the North Fork, Cutchogue resident Andrea Parks had never seen a shark.

That all changed Monday morning, when she and her sons saw a "mini-Jaws," washed up on , flapping around and gasping for air.

"It was half-buried in the sand," she said. "There was no sign of injury, so we put it in deeper water and it swam away."

Parks, who is also the director of the , said that the fish was about 12 inches long and had no teeth, which made her think it was a baby.

Kimberly Durham, rescue program director for the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, identified the animal as a smooth dogfish shark or a spiny dogfish shark — both of which are plentiful species in the Peconic Bay. 

"They are small — they grow only to about three feet," she said. "So this one was a younger animal."

Durham said that the dogfish shark is a reclusive animal, more scared of you than anything, and tend to stay in the deeper water.

"It might have been sick, or a gull could have dropped it near the shoreline," she said. "But they aren't usually seen near the shore and they wouldn't bite unless you happened to step on one directly."

For Parks, her first shark experience on the North Fork was a positive one.

"This was the first shark I've seen on this side of the world," she said. "I'm glad we could help it."