Shark In Condo Pool

AFP/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Shark found in pool at Florida condo likely dead after two boys dump it in and flee - A 5-foot-long shark found in a pool at a coastal Florida condo is likely dead after two boys dumped it in and ran, a report revealed Sunday.

Nicole Bonk saw the boys carrying the live blacktip shark with hooks in its mouth into the pool at Hypoluxo’s Mariner’s Cay Condominium around 11 p.m. earlier this month, she told the Orlando Sentinel.

Bonk and her husband alerted the state wildlife agency and rushed the shark to the nearby Intracoastal Waterway, where they released it, she said.

“These two kids, they came back from fishing and threw this half-dead creature into the pool as a prank,” she said. “They left the shark in the pool to die. I think they're terrible children because it's animal cruelty.”

Officials at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are investigating, the South Florida SunSentinel reported. Security cameras in the swimming pool area at the Palm Beach County condo complex may have caught the incident.

Officials at the agency and the condo didn’t immediately respond to requests for more information Monday afternoon.

Blacktip sharks, which are common in waters off South Florida, have chomped humans 28 different times in reported incidents through the years, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History. The often-fished species is listed as “near-threatened” by the World Conservation Union.

Bonk and her husband tried to help the shark flush out the swimming pool’s chlorinated water before they let it go, she said.

“We tried to revive him but he mostly likely did not live,” she said. ”He was barely moving after the trauma. We did our best to try to save this creature.”