Man drags shark out of water, takes pictures on Florida beach

A man was filmed pulling a shark out of the water and pinning it down while passersby at a Florida beach stopped to take pictures.

Video of the incident shows the shark thrashing near the shore before an unidentified man wearing multi-colored swim trunks grabs its tail and yanks it onto the sand. The animal continues to struggle until the man holds it down for a few photos.

The one-and-a-half-minute video ends with a different man dragging the shark back toward the water where the waves meet the shore. Ashleigh Walters, the WPTV reporter who recorded the video, wrote in the description that after the video ended the shark was taken into a deeper area where it didn't resurface for several minutes.

It's unclear what kind of shark it was, but thousands of blacktip sharks are currently in the area as part of a winter migration, according to the Associated Press.

Walters' video has garnered tens of thousands of views since it was posted to her Facebook page on Saturday. Comments on the post are split between critics who say the animal never should have been dragged to shore and supporters who call it a run-of-the-mill catch and release.

This video comes after tourists in Argentina caused outrage when they removed a rare dolphin from the water so they could pass it around for selfies. That dolphin ended up dying, but the fate of the shark in the Florida video is unclear.

Elizabeth Hogan, the U.S. oceans and wildlife campaign manager for the World Animal Protection non-profit organization, said in an emailed statement that pulling sharks onto the land can put the animals in jeopardy.

"Removing a shark from the ocean for the sake of a selfie is highly cruel," the statement read. "This animal would have been suffocating and unable to breathe the entire time it was kept out of the water."

In Florida, it is legal to fish for certain types of sharks. However, the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission does note that in instances of catch and release, fishermen should take care to make the process as painless as possible for the animal. Exhaustion from the struggle could kill the shark or make it more vulnerable to predators, according to FWC.