On Friday morning, a seven-metre-long de.ad whale shark was dragged into the Karachi Fish Harbour, presumably eliciting déjà vu. The female whale-shark, weighing roughly 4 tonnes, was smaller than the one pulled to the harbour by a fisherman on February 7 last year. The last specimen, which is now on exhibit at the Pakistan Museum of Natural History in Islamabad, was almost 40 feet long and weighed a whopping 15 tonnes.

Hundreds of people came to the waterfront to see the animal, which had been packed with ice to halt the process of decomposition. Some young males jumped onto the whale shark’s body and began posing for pictures. Almost everyone in the vicinity of the de.ad whale shark had pulled out their phones and taken photos. Some kids began to play with the whale shark’s fin.

Jumman, 35, the skipper of the fishing vessel that hauled the whale shark to port, told a riveted audience how he came across the beast. On Thursday lunchtime, his 14-man team cast their trawling net into the water between Charna and Somyani. “We noticed that the net was thicker than normal.” We were surprised to find a whale shark when we investigated what he had captured about 3 p.m.” A crane was used to take the de.ad fish out of the sea after it was hauled to the Karachi harbor.

Catching a large fish is a bad omen for Pakistani fishermen. “We don’t enjoy catching an Andhi Mangar (whale shark) since they can’t be sold easily in the market and we can’t make money,” Jumman explained, adding that his catch this time was rather disappointing. “Its flesh is prohibited, but we demand Rs300,000 for the fish since its liver oil and lipids may be utilised,” Jumman explained. Allah Dinu, who was also aboard the boat, thought that the whale shark was hit by a cargo ship’s propeller.

According to Anees Soomro, the head of operations at the Karachi Fish Harbour Authority, the whale shark has not yet decomposed and has no lesions on its body. He, however, stated that he was unable to remark on the animal’s de.ath. “Fishermen’s nets cannot k.i.ll whale sharks, but this one became trapped in one by accident,” Soomro explained.

The port administration has requested that the animals be examined by specialists from Karachi University, World Wildlife Fund – Pakistan, and other organizations. The whale shark samples will be sent to them on Monday.