BOLIVAR PENINSULA, Texas — A beachgoer on the Bolivar Peninsula recently came upon a disturbing sight.
Morgann Gericke said she and her husband pulled onto the beach from Rollover Pass recently when they started seeing one dead shark after another.
"We found 17 sharks in less than 20 minutes," Gericke told us. "I actually had to just go home after that. It was so terrible to witness."
Some of the sharks appeared to be mutilated and one had been decapitated.
Gericke plans to study marine biology and she believes sharks are misunderstood.
"Sharks are not only extremely important to the ocean ecosystem but our entire planet, and to witness the overfishing of them in our local waters is terrifying," Gericke said.
The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department sent their Kills and Spills Team to investigate and they ruled out environmental factors. They then turned it over to the Texas Game Wardens who got back to us today with their findings.
"While the incident is likely man-made, there is no evidence of criminal activity," Jen Shugert with the Texas Game Wardens said in a statement.
Even if it's not illegal, Gericke said it was upsetting.
“It’s definitely sad to see,” Gericke told the Galveston County Daily News. “It’s sad seeing that many sharks dead. I was crying. There was a lot of emotion. It made me disappointed in Texas fishermen.”
Is it legal to catch sharks in Texas?
There are more than a dozen types of sharks in Texas waters.
It's legal to catch some types, but they are subject to minimum size requirements and bag limits, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Here's a list of the breeds that you can and can't legally catch here.