A headline on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) website baffled me this morning.
"Moose Eating Shark Rescued in Newfoundland Harbour".
That's one of those headlines that make me question if I am really awake enough to be reading the news. Apparently I was.
So how's this for a.....ahem....whale of a tale.
Derrick Chaulk and Jeremy Ball were driving around the Norris Arm North harbour in Newfoundland when they spotted what they thought was a beached whale. Imagine their surprise to discover it was an 8 foot long Greenland Shark. THEN, imagine how alarmed they were to see it was still alive! The reason for its distress?
[the shark] had a large chunk of moose hide protruding from its mouth.
"It [the moose] had the fur and all the liner on it — it was about two feet long, maybe."
It was choking to death.
"He swallowed and got it halfway down and couldn't cough it back up and couldn't get it all down, and then I think the tide brought him in."
So you are out for a Saturday drive and you find a large shark, choking to death on a moose. What do you do?
Chaulk said another local man, Jeremy Ball, arrived on the scene and starting pulling on the moose chunk.
"A couple yanks and it just came right out."
The two men then set about getting the shark back in the water.
Ball tied a rope around the shark's tail, and Chaulk got ready to push.
"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."
The shark took about 30 minutes to revive, but it swam off to the sound of people cheering from the beach.
Only in Newfoundland....
But after a horrible week of news about Mayor Rob Ford and our expanding Senate scandal, it was glorious to read a story that is both funny and heartwarming.
CBC story