An Oregon man faces multiple charges for allegedly capturing and "wrestling" protected bluntnose sixgill and broadnose sevengill sharks in Puget Sound, Washington.
The Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced the charges after a months-long investigation, culminating in the June confrontation captured on body camera footage.
The footage shows a WDFW officer informing the suspect, identified as Connor Seifert, 27, that he had violated regulations. "You know your shark rules," the officer can be heard saying. "You can’t fully or partially remove sixgill from the water."
According to the WDFW, "wrestling" a shark to shore and removing it from the water can be detrimental to the animals, particularly when they are pups. "When you wrestle a sixgill to shore like that, you hop on its back, you expose its gills to the air," the officer stated in the video. "You know as well as anybody else does that Puget Sound is a nursery for these sharks. There has been a direct correlation between catching these sharks in this stage in their lives and the mortality of the pups inside the moms."
The department explained that the exhaustion from being fought to shore can lead to the death of the pups within the mother sharks, potentially impacting future populations of these species in Puget Sound.
Seifert has been charged in Pierce County with nine counts of unlawful recreational fishing in the second degree and one count of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant. The former is a misdemeanor, while the latter is a gross misdemeanor. Penalties for a misdemeanor conviction include fines up to $1,000 and 90 days in jail, and for a gross misdemeanor, fines up to $5,000 and a year in jail.
While Seifert reportedly claimed he accidentally caught the sharks, videos he allegedly posted on social media appear to show him sitting on a shark's back and holding its mouth open while it was on the shore. The WDFW stated that officers have received 14 complaints related to Seifert, primarily concerning his alleged targeting of these sharks.
Both bluntnose sixgill and broadnose sevengill sharks are designated as "Species of Greatest Conservation Need" in Washington State. Globally, bluntnose sixgills are listed as "near threatened," and broadnose sevengills are classified as "vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Puget Sound serves as a critical nursery area for these shark species before they migrate to the ocean, making the period highly vulnerable for their development, the WDFW noted.