Pregnant Bull Shark Tagged In Australian River Among Largest Ever Seen [Photos]

A shark “tagger” was left astounded after he caught a 10-foot-long pregnant bull shark off the waters of Manning River in North South Wales, Australia.

Dozens of female sharks are known to make their way into the Manning River over the years to give birth when breeding season ensues. However, the size of one particular predator left Adam Maddalena, 38, who is employed by NSW Department of Primary Industries for catching and tagging sharks in awe, News reported.

A couple of weeks ago, Maddalena returned to Taree, an area of the river where he had laid out baits for catching sharks with his friend to find a mammoth pregnant bull shark caught in one of them – the biggest shark that Maddalena had ever hooked in his career in the Manning River.

We’ve got our baits out for anything that comes along but we only target the smaller ones so we can tag them and send them off,” Maddalena said. “We actually thought it was a little one because it was only little bursts of speed that it was taking off with so I took up tension and hooked it. I knew straight away it was a lot bigger than we expected.”

Maddalena added that he was so shocked after seeing the size of the predator that for a little while he forgot that he had a job to do.

“We were actually speechless. We sort of just looked at each other and realized how big it was so there wasn’t too much said, we just knew that we had to get in and get it done,” he added. “That big one just happened to come in at the time we had our baits out. It was a bit of a shock actually. It took me about 45 minutes to get this shark in close enough so we could grab the tail and get a tail rope on it.”

Maddalena proceeded to describe the physical features of the extraordinary creature which he and his friend finally unhooked from the bait and released back into the river.

“Even the head of it was a lot wider than standard so she was a pedigree, pretty much. She was a very healthy shark,” he said. “We made sure we kept her in deep water so there was no pressure on her. She was obviously in a pup (ready to give birth).”

According to NSW Department of Primary Industries spokeswoman, the presence of bull sharks in the Manning River wasn’t an uncommon phenomenon during the end of the year, when they flock into the waters to give birth.