A 21-year-old man from Florida, identified as Granger Ray Wooten, is now facing misdemeanor charges after witnesses told officials he was seen dragging an 8-9-foot hammerhead shark out of the water with another individual.
Immediately following, he was observed wrapping his arm around the shark’s head, presumably to keep it from attacking him, and then repeatedly punched the shark in the stomach.
After the shark was already beached, the suspects then gathered around the animal and sat a young child atop it to take a photo with their smartphone.
Following their heinous act, they then reportedly tried to drag the shark back into the water to revive it.
Wooten lied to officials initially, saying he never punched the shark. But after some interrogating, he finally admitted to it in his own derranged sort of way. The man claimed he was attempting a CPR-like maneuver on the shark to “get the air out of its lungs.”
“If he [Wooten] wanted to revive the shark all he had to do was run water through the shark’s gills,” Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission officials said.
The other individual has not been identified and it looks like they aren’t facing charges either. Then again, Wooten was the only one seen punching the shark.
The shark later died from all the activity, as the revival attempt was obviously unsuccessful, and it was found floating underneath a nearby pier not too long after the report.
Catching an endangered hammerhead shark became an illegal act in Florida starting 2012, and if the man had simply let the shark go, rather than attacking and killing it, he wouldn’t have faced any charges.
For whatever reason, people have a deranged obsession with attacking and killing ocean wildlife to take selfies on the beach. A similar situation involving a Dominican Republic beach spelled the death for another shark earlier this year, which was dragged from the water for a photograph as well.
Source: Panama City News Herald, Telegraph
