‘Be aware these protected sharks are out here’

A shark was reportedly stabbed by a fisherman and left for dead on a local beach over the weekend, as a leading shark researcher urged fishers to “be aware these protected sharks are out here.”

The juvenile sand tiger shark was found by a woman walking along a Marshfield beach on Saturday — who reported the injured shark to scientist John Chisholm.

The protected shark had reportedly been caught by a striped bass fisherman and stabbed several times before being left for dead on the South Shore beach.

“The fisherman had caught it and apparently thought it was a dogfish, which is thought of as a nuisance fish that overwhelm a fishing spot, so they kill them,” Chisholm told the Herald on Monday.

“Some fishermen don’t realize these are baby sand tiger sharks, and that’s exactly what happened in this case,” he added about the protected species, which has experienced a recent resurgence in the region.

The Good Samaritan who found the stabbed sand tiger put the shark back into the water to try to revive it. She thought the shark was still alive because its mouth was moving.

“She pushed it offshore and it washed away, but it most likely didn’t survive,” said Chisholm, a scientist with the New England Aquarium, who also verifies shark sighting reports through the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s Sharktivity app.

“They are tough, and many survive after being caught and tagged, but this was probably not a good outcome for the shark,” he added.

The sand tiger shark is a prohibited species in Massachusetts. As a result, it’s unlawful to possess or harvest this species, and if caught incidentally, they must be released to help them survive.

A person who kills a sand tiger shark could be subject to a minimum fine of $100 for a non-criminal violation, or a criminal violation of $400 to $10,000, per state law.

Sand tiger sharks — which have two large dorsal fins with no spines — are most often confused with smooth dogfish, but sand tigers have very noticeable long thin teeth while smooth dogfish do not. The spiny dogfish is another small coastal shark, but can easily be distinguished from a sand tiger by its two dorsal fin spines and the lack of anal fin.