'Rare' And 'Important:' Large Shark Washes Ashore In Rhode Island

WATCH HILL, RI — A massive female shark washed ashore in Watch Hill, Rhode Island Wednesday — an unusual occurrence that Atlantic Shark Institute experts called "unfortunate" but "important."

"We had a rare opportunity to retrieve a large porbeagle shark from Watch Hill/East Beach on the RI coast earlier today," the institute wrote in a Facebook post a few hours after the discovery.

The shark, who measured in at eight feet, eight inches and weighed several hundred pounds, appeared on the shore when the tide went out, experts said.

"These large sharks really like the colder water so when everyone else has headed south for the winter, they are still here enjoying these waters with much less pressure from competing shark species," the post continued.

Removing the shark from the beach was a team effort, experts said, adding that the shark was loaded into an American Shark Institute truck and is now waiting in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration apex predator cooler in Narragansett for a necropsy.

"While [her death is] unfortunate, at that size, she can provide vital information to researchers and we hope to share more when the necropsy is completed," officials said.

It is rare for a shark of any kind to wash ashore in Rhode Island, experts told Patch in September after a similar incident in Middleton.

Often, the shark's cause of death is difficult to determine, but what we do know is that most sharks that are found washed ashore died farther out in the ocean before drifting inland with the tide, Michelle Passerotti, Ph.D. of the Apex Predators Program at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center Narragansett Lab, previously told Patch.

There is also a lot of research still to be done about diseases in sharks, "mostly because very few sick sharks are observed," Passerotti added at the time.

She emphasized that this is likely due to the rarity of sick sharks making it to shore as opposed to the actual rarity of disease.

If ever you come across a shark on the beach, be sure to give the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration a call so biologists can gather information, Passerotti told WPRI.

"These samples are very valuable for research," Passerotti added. "In a lot of cases, [the samples] come from species or sizes of sharks that we don’t necessarily have access to often, so we have to really try and get out there as quickly as possible."