Koala Death: Obituary for a 12-foot Great White Shark Named Koala
A 12-foot great white shark named Koala washed ashore on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, leaving the community shocked and curious about the cause of death ¹. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy (AWSC), which had first identified the shark in 2022, reported that the cause of death remains unknown ¹.
Photos of the shark on Nauset Beach were shared by the Orleans Police Department, who also called a tow truck for its removal ¹. The department humorously noted in a Facebook post, “Not one of our typical calls for service, nor is it one for our local duty tow, Nauset Recovery ¹. But, as always, we answered the call.”
Cape Cod, a popular tourist destination, is also a key feeding ground for great white sharks ¹. Greg Skomal, a marine scientist studying sharks off the New England coast since the 1980s, noted that he only began encountering great whites near Cape Cod in 2004, and tagged his first one in 2009 ¹. Since 2012, there have been only three reported shark-related injuries to humans in the area, with the most recent fatality occurring in 2018 ¹.
The AWSC stated that Koala’s death remains a mystery, as there were no clear signs of how or why the shark died ¹. A necropsy was performed, and tissue samples were taken for further analysis to determine the cause of death ¹.
Meanwhile, in other news, cars, chlamydia and canines are the biggest killers of koalas in South East Queensland ². A database tracking hospital admissions and deaths reveals the devastating impact of these factors on the koala population ². Professor Joerg Henning and his colleagues at The University of Queensland School of Veterinary Science have analysed data from the UQ-developed KoalaBASE ².
According to the analysis, car strikes, dog attacks and chlamydia-induced illnesses are injuring and killing a significant number of koalas across South East Queensland ². In the five years between 2009 and 2014, 52 per cent of reported wild koala deaths were caused by car strike, 34 per cent were from a chlamydia-related disease and 14 per cent were because of a dog attack ².
This equates to 1,431 koala deaths from
