By Hyun Young Yi and Daewoung Kim
BUSAN, South Korea, Oct 2 (Reuters) – A second attempt to guide a shark stranded in a canal in the South Korean port city of Busan back to the open sea ended without success on Friday, with the animal staying in the waterway into a third week.
Rescuers, who had been using a net to try to coax it out, had to end the operation after a two hour chase due to the risk of their huge net getting caught on rocks.
They now hope that the shark will eventually swim out to the open sea on its own, after leaving the net in place to limit how far back up the canal it can swim.
The 3.5-metre (11.48-ft) shark was first spotted in a narrow waterway at North Port on September 18.
Nicknamed “Bukangi”, which is derived from “Buk Hang”, the Korean name for North Port, and the Korean suffix “-i”, about 600,000 people have flocked to the area to see the shark.
Experts say it could be a bronze whaler, a species typically found in warm temperate waters and which has been seen off South Korea’s coasts.
FIFTY METER NET
The shark’s prolonged stay drew particular attention because of the unusual location. The narrow canal is situated in North Port, close to high-rise buildings and a major high-speed rail station in the heart of Busan.
Authorities first attempted to guide the shark toward the sea on Tuesday using vessels equipped with water jets, but the shark swam away from jets and remained in the canal.
For the second attempt, authorities used a 50-metre-long and 6.8-metre-high net to prevent the shark from turning back toward the canal.
A vessel pulled the centre of the net while five people on each side moved along the waterfront, coordinating their speed to guide the shark toward the sea.
But the shark remained in the canal. The net now limits the shark to swimming in a 100 metre stretch that leads to the sea.
“As the water level changes and the current shifts, we expect the shark may eventually be able to make its own way out,” said Kim Hyun-woo, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Fisheries Science who has been leading the operation.
“Once we confirm that it has completely left the canal and made its way out into the open sea, we can consider the operation a success.”
LOCALS FLOCK TO SEE SHARK
Noise, lights and electrical signals could have been making it difficult for the shark to find its way out, he said. “For the shark, there are just too many external physical stimuli coming from different directions.”
Hundreds of people gathered along the waterway to watch the rescue on Friday. Some visitors said they would be sad to see it leave, while others said the shark should be returned to the sea and its natural habitat as soon as possible.
“I do hope it eventually heads back out to the open sea. But I guess it likes Busan, too, since it’s still here,” Busan resident Jo Won-ho said.
Bukangi’s appearance has also drawn attention to changes in the waters around South Korea.
Experts have pointed to warming sea temperatures as one possible factor behind the growing number of large shark sightings.
An analysis by the National Institute of Fisheries Science found 46 sightings of large sharks along the country’s east coast during the first half of this year, compared with 12 over the same period last year.
(Reporting by Hyun Young Yi and Daewoung Kim; Editing by Alison Williams)
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