People are disturbed by this Instagram video of a shark being dragged by a speedboat
An cruel and disturbing 11-second video showing a sharked being dragged at high speed by a group of people on a boat has gone viral on Instagram.
The predator, who appears to be caught on a rope by its tail, is seen violently thrust into the air and hits the water's surface hard as the men on the boat laugh.
Mark "Mark The Shark" Quartiano, a fisherman in South Florida, received the video on Instagram by direct message from someone who was on the boat.
“This is just really sick, one of the most horrific things I have seen in 50 years of professional sport fishing,” he told WESH 2 in Orlando.
Quaritano believes the man who sent him the video was one of his 78,000 followers on Instagram and was probably looking for his approval.
"I guess they saw a need to send me that video -- like I was going to condone that kind of behavior, which I don't," Quartiano told ABC News.
“They said, ‘Oh, this is pretty cool, look what we did to the shark,’ and I go, ‘Are you kidding me man?’ and that’s when I instantly reposted it and that’s when all the feedback started coming out. All the people started going crazy and it went viral,” he said.
“To drag a shark by the tail on a rope, it’s not sporting. It’s not. It should be against the law,” Quartiano added.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said they've been alerted about the video. They're attempting to identify the people in it and where the incident took place. However, they added it was too early to speculate as to what, if any, violations occurred.
