A Port Alberni log salvager recovered more than loose logs while working in the Alberni Inlet last week.
Ron Steinbach was about to pull a log off the Boy Scout Camp beach near Coulson’s mill on Thursday when he found a 12- to 14-foot-long dead shark.
“I knew it was a Sixgill shark when I first saw it,” Steinbach said.
“It was floating half in the water and half out and it looked like it was about four days (dead).”
Steinback lashed the shark to his salvage boat and towed it to the former APD site nearby to show workers from West Van Isle Contracting.
There, workers estimated that the shark weighed in excess of 900 pounds.
Officials from Fisheries and Oceans Canada including a shark specialist from Nanaimo came to Port Alberni on Friday to pick up the shark.
The shark was thoroughly examined before being disposed of it at the local landfill.
Female sharks are suspected to venture to shallower waters — anything under 200 feet deep — to give birth, and this one likely died from truama or stress.
“This one had no propeller, hook or gaffe wounds on it,” DFO research scientist Jackie King said.
The pups were kept for further study though.
“We know very little about the pupping and birthing process,” King said.
“They (pups) are a source of missing knowledge for a shark that size so close to birthing.”
reporter@albernivalleynews.com