Washington wildlife officers say they spent months tracking an Oregon angler they accuse of turning protected sharks in Puget Sound into props for social media. Connor Seifert, 27, has been charged in Pierce County with nine misdemeanor counts of unlawful recreational fishing and one gross misdemeanor count of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant, reports Fox News. Seifert said the catches were accidental, reports the Seattle Times, but investigators point to his own videos showing him handling the bluntnose sixgill sharks on shore.
Body camera footage released by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife shows an officer confronting Seifert in June thusly:
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"You know your shark rules! You can't fully or partially remove sixgill from the water. When you wrestle a sixgill to shore like that, you hop on its back, you expose its gills to the air. You know as well as anybody else does that Puget Sound is a nursery for these sharks. There has been a direct correlation between catching these sharks in this stage in their lives and the mortality of the pups inside the moms."
Officers say Puget Sound functions as a nursery for bluntnose sixgill and broadnose sevengill sharks and that it received 14 complaints tied to Seifert and monitored his movements and online posts before setting up surveillance. If convicted, he faces potential fines of up to $6,000 and as much as 15 months in jail.
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