In a bizarre story out of Newfoundland last weekend, two men saved the life of a Greenland shark which was choking on a large chunk of moose meat and had gotten itself beached.

Derrick Chaulk and Jeremy Ball arrived at the beach seperately and noticed what looked like a beached whale; upon closer inspection, they saw what was happening and began trying to remove the meat from the shark’s gullet.

“It [the moose] had the fur and all the liner on it — it was about two feet long, maybe. A couple yanks and it just came right out,” Chaulk said.

The shark still wasn’t breathing, but the two men acted quickly to get it into deeper water, tying a rope around its tail to aid their efforts.

“He pulled the rope, and I pushed with my boot,” said Chaulk, “and between the two of us we got him out into deeper water. Then all of a sudden, the water started coming out of his gills and he started breathing.”

The 8-foot long, 250-pound shark lay in shallow water for a good while before taking off.

“There was a few people up on the bank watching and once that shark swam out and lifted his tail, and then swam all the way out, everybody just clapped,” he said. “It was a good feeling to see that shark swim out, knowing that you saved his life.”

The Greenland shark is rarely seen in that area, but they tend to feed in shallow water and have been known to attack a number of large animals that find themselves nearby, such as reindeer, horses, and even polar bears. However, officials believe that this shark was only feeding on scraps that had been discarded by people who had butchered and cleaned a moose nearby.

Image: Wikimedia Commons