Whale shark caught and hacked into pieces in Johor

AsiaOne 24 Aug 09;

A quiet lunch affair at a seafood restaurant turned awry and bloody when a whale shark, size of a pick-up truck, was hauled onto the jetty and hacked into pieces.

A Singaporean eye-witness who was having his meal at the restaurant, south of Johor, Malaysia, at that time wrote this account:
"I was there having lunch with some friends at a seafood restaurant when a local walked in and told the boss that a big shark was caught.

"I did not give much thought to it until the workers who went there to see came back and told their fellow colleagues that the shark was as big as a pick-up.

"This caught my attention. We paid for our meal and went over to the jetty to have a look.

"When we reached the jetty, it was already quite crowded. I managed to squeeze in some photos as the poor shark was being sliced by a hack saw.

According to the eye-witness, the catch could have been the joint efforts of three fishing boats which had brought the big fish in from the South China Sea, as he overheard in murmuring conversations from the crowd.

"As you can see, the shark was being chopped up, did not stay long to watch as we had to catch our ferry.

"Seeing the poor guy being chopped up, I was quite sad.

"What you see in picture is very different from the actual situation. There was the noise from the hack saw, blood flowing out etc."