Diners at a beachside restaurant had front row seats to the dramatic rescue of a baby great white shark in South Africa.
Lars Liedberg, from Zimbabwe, had just finished breakfast in Plettenberg Bay in South Africa when he spotted fishermen trying to save the animal after accidentally catching it with their lines.
The 38-year-old filmed the struggle as crowds gathered to help release the shark before it suffocated.
A baby great white shark desperately struggles to return to the ocean after being caught on fisherman’s line
‘I realised the fisherman was in the midst of an intense battle with some sort of fish and it had to be big,’ Liedberg explained.
‘I saw the dark shape in the waves and realised it was a shark.
‘The fisherman and another man then pulled the fish in and it lay in the shallow water thrashing about while the pair tried to retrieve the hook.
‘I suggested they just cut it because the shark seemed distressed but this guy did not want to waste a hook.’
Dramatic footage of the event was filmed by Lars Liedberg, who was having breakfast at a restaurant nearby
The ordeal took place on the beach in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa, where the shark was pulled ashore
Great white sharks are a protected species in South Africa and the fishing of the animal is illegal.
Liedberg added that following a prolonged effort to get the fish back in the water, the distraught shark was eventually helped into the ocean and was able to swim away.
‘Eventually the hook was levered out of the shark’s gaping jaws,’ he said.
‘The men then grabbed it by the tail and tried to drag it out into deeper waters.
‘The shark actually started to mock attack, whipping its head up and snapping its mouth.
According to Liedberg, the fisherman seemed more concerned with retrieving his hook than saving the shark
Great white sharks are a protected species in South Africa, meaning that fishing the animal is illegal
The two men pulled the shark by its fin in an attempt to move it back into deeper water where it could swim
Following a prolonged effort to get the animal back into the water, he was finally helped back out to sea
‘It could have taken one of their arms clean off.
‘They slowly managed to get it in water deep enough for it to swim away but it remained lifeless.
‘The crowd was standing in stunned silence waiting for it to move, myself included.
‘Eventually they pushed it away from them into the deeper blue. All you could see was the beautiful tail fin above the darker deeper water.
‘It must have mustered its last strength and its tail started moving and just like that the shark was was gone.’