GREAT NEWS: MAE’S TAG IS RETRIEVED AND MAE THE BASKING SHARK IS PROBABLY FINE!

Excellent news! Mae the 7.5m long female basking shark is very probably OK. The story unfolded in front of me last night after quite a lot of detective work that involved me bothering quite a lot of people! Particular thanks to Emmett! This fin photo is NOT of Mae's fin but it shows a large healthy basking shark (number 21 in the basking shark fin catalogue) who's dorsal fin shows evidence of having being temporarily caught in a net. It turns out that at about lunchtime on the 17th November 2017, Mae was swimming at about 100m depth in the Celtic Deep when she was accidentally caught in the nets of an Irish boat that was fishing for whiting ...