Biologists catch shark that became celebrity on Spanish beach

Biologists caught a two-meter-long (7-foot-long) shark that had become a tourist attraction by making daily incursions into knee-high water on a Spanish beach, wrestling it with their bare hands and dragging it ashore.

But the rescue effort may fail, a biologist said Tuesday, as the shark was very ill and may not survive.

The 90-kilogram (200-pound) female sandbar shark _ a species not generally associated with attacks on humans _ first appeared early last week at Miracle beach, in northeast Tarragona province, forcing authorities to close off the water to bathers.

The fish became a novelty by swimming regularly into plain view in very shallow water. Bathers gathered daily to snap photos. Police fined several people who ventured into the water to splash around with it.

A team of three biologists from the Barcelona Aquarium waded in Monday and, after two failed attempts before a crowd of hundreds, finally managed to capture the flailing shark with their hands. They quickly stuck its snout into a net to keep it from biting.

Two of the rescuers were slightly injured with cuts and scratches from the shark's fins.

The team put the fish into a tank and, with a police escort, transported it by truck to the aquarium for a medical checkup. If healthy, the shark was to be returned to the open sea.

But biologists found the shark's dorsal fin had been punctured by a harpoon _ possibly from someone at Miracle beach _ and the shark was also showing some kind of internal problem, maybe from swallowing an object, said Patrici Bulto, chief biologist at the aquarium.

The shark has stopped swimming, so divers were pushing it through the water _ essential to keeping it alive because sharks' respiratory systems have no mechanism for pumping water through their gills and they need to move constantly in order to breathe.

"We are not optimistic at all," Bulto told a news conference.