300-pound shark gets stranded in sand and dies on Washington beach, officials say

A 12-foot thresher shark washed up on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington over Labor Day weekend.

The shark was alive when it washed up ashore on Sept. 2 but died shortly after on the sand, the Seaside Aquarium in nearby Seaside, Oregon posted on Facebook.

The shark was too big to freeze, according to the aquarium post. So, after the public got a look at the shark, aquarium personnel performed a necropsy — an autopsy on an animal — right on the beach.

“It is not very often that we get to see these large sharks and anything we can learn or educate the public on is a great opportunity,” said Seaside Aquarium said in the post.

Between 50 and 75 people watched the procedure. “Most people were fascinated by the length of the shark’s tail, in which it is named after.

“The thresher shark uses its long tail to ‘thrash’ through schools of fish, stunning them, then swimming back through and eating the stunned fish,” the aquarium taught the onlookers.

The aquarium hopes with these procedures they can figure out why thresher sharks are washing up on beaches.

“It is important to be able to collect data and various tissues and organ samples,” said the aquarium.

The aquarium ruled out any fisheries interaction.

Long Beach is about 170 miles southwest of Seattle

This story was originally published September 7, 2022 at 11:31 AM.