Nearly 30 dead dogfish sharks washed up on the Jersey Shore early Wednesday, leaving beachgoers and local residents unsettled by the unexplained scene along the sand.
The cluster of dead marine predators was found on a section of beach in Sea Isle City, ABC reported.
“All of a sudden, you start seeing a concentration of small sand sharks, and I thought, ‘Well, this is odd,’” said Michelle Greenling, who spotted the sharks spread across about 10 blocks during her Wednesday morning walk.
Marine experts said the small sharks, measuring roughly 3 to 5 feet long, often travel in large schools that can number from hundreds to thousands. What caused the animals to die has not yet been determined.
“A couple of things it could be,” Stephen Nagiewicz, a marine scientist at Stockton University, told ABC.
“There’s something in the water, and they got sick and died. That’s probably unlikely since people haven’t been affected.”
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Nagiewicz said the dogfish sharks, which generally weigh between 8 and 22 pounds, were more likely caught by fishermen and then discarded back into the ocean.
“They dumped them over the side or lost a net with all the things in there by accident, and all those sharks just floated up on the beach with the tides,” he said.
Dogfish are relatively common along the Jersey Shore and along the eastern coasts of the Americas.
They migrate north and closer to the shore in the summer and south and offshore in the winter, according to Conserve Wildlife New Jersey.
Because of their abundance, fishermen often call them “junk fish” because they eat bait that targets other species.
But some dogfish populations have declined over the years after becoming accidental by-catch for commercial and recreational fishermen.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Preservation did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
