Nature Coast Marine Group vice president Bill Barker, of Potato Point, was diving on the north side of the island with his son and grandson on New Years Eve when they saw the shark. 

“The young male shark has a large amount of fishing gear hanging from his mouth,” Mr Barker said.  “This shark’s future is bleak. The hook might rust away but the shark is probably finding it difficult to feed and may suffer serious infection and die. No one likes to see an animal in distress.”

Mr Barker said grey nurse sharks were critically endangered. 

“Accidental hooking is a major cause of grey nurse shark deaths,” he said.  “The premature death of even a few sharks puts the species further into danger.”

Since filming the shark, Mr Barker sent the footage to the “Spot a Shark” program and the experts were able to able to track down individual, providing another photo of it.

“The grey nurse shark conservation organisation Spot a Shark used specialised software to check the Montague Island photo against their database. They found the shark had previously been photographed at Julian Rocks near Byron Bay last August,” he said.

Mr Barker said the photo shows that since the shark had traveled 900 kilometres down the coast, the fishing gear attached to the shark has become more fouled with marine growth.