Live Shark Stolen From Garden Shed

Something seems fishy about the following story of a shark being stolen from a shed.  Unless the shark was a gang member from NY who snapped his fingers and walked in lock step with his brothers, I know Peter Benchley wouldn’t believe it. So why should I?

Anyway, here are the details..

A live shark was stolen from a shed, police said today. The marble shark – one half of the only breeding pair in the UK – was taken from a garden in Farnborough, Hampshire, over the weekend.

A shark in a shed, huh? I wonder if it was hanging from the wall right between the pitchfork and the shovel?

The good news is that MI-5 is all over this case.

Pc Stephen Court said: “We believe this may have been a targeted burglary of a shark that is extremely rare in the UK.

So it wasn’t a random theft. Hmm…interesting theory since shark theft cases are all the rage in Hampshire. This is actually the … hold on for a second while I check my crime statistics…oh yes here it is…this is the first such crime of this type. That’s some great police work.

What’s next, a communication alerting the public that says, “If anyone sees someone with a big shark tank with a shark in it, please contact us as this may be our suspect?”

“Due to the unusual type of shark it will be difficult to sell in this country.”

Mr Newman’s wife, June, said the fish, which originally comes from Indonesia, was worth around £2,500 and the pair had recently bred six baby sharks.

£2,500? That’s more than most dogs. Me thinks someone is inflating the value of their goods for insurance purposes. Or, maybe the article had a mistake in it and it was supposed to say “weighed around 2,500 lbs”.

The couple run an aquatics shop from their home and fear that customers who came to see the baby sharks could have been tempted to return to steal the mother. Mrs Newman said the thief or thieves would have needed a ladder to get up to the tank.

I don’t know much about fish, but I’d venture a guess and say that the shark had a heck of a time trying to walk down that ladder at gunpoint.