(WSVN/CNN) - Animal activists are outraged over a video showing men laughing while shooting a shark and watching it bleed to death.
This comes after another recent video showing a shark being violently dragged in the water.
We need to warn you about the graphic nature of these clips.
The video is hard to watch. These guys catch a shark then shoot it, smiling as the hammerhead bleeds out in the water.
“This video speaks for itself. It’s heinous,” said Russ Rector, an animal rights activist.
Rector said the person who took the video sent it to him. It is now part of a state investigation.
“He didn’t even have the knowledge, or the courtesy, or the empathy to put the bullet in the shark’s head,” he said. “He shot the shark repeatedly in the gills.”
A spokesman for Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said, “That video was forwarded to us as a result of the public outcry from the first shark-dragging video.” That video is included in the package.
The shark-shooting video is being investigated, and FFWC officials can’t confirm the identities of the men, he said.
FFWC is also investigating a hammerhead being used as a beer bong. A group of men in the video are seen laughing as one man is drinking the beer from below the shark’s body.
“That makes it monstrous,” said Eric Hovland. “That shark was probably far gone or on its way out already.”
It’s unclear where the new video was taken or when. FFWC says it is illegal to shoot a shark in Florida waters but not against the law in federal waters.
What animal activists say makes them upset is the men on the boat are smiling and laughing while the shark suffers.
“Shooting a shark in the gills is not an instant kill,” Rector said. “That shark slowly bled out and suffocated.”
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