‘Once in a lifetime’: 14-foot hammerhead shark found dead on NC beach

CAROLINA BEACH, N.C. (WECT/Gray News) – A 14-foot scalloped hammerhead sharked washed ashore in southeastern North Carolina early Sunday. The North Carolina Shark Conservancy received word of a shark at Freeman Park around 3 a.m. It slipped back into the ocean before washing ashore again that afternoon.Because of the shark’s size, a team from Ocean Rescue, the Carolina Beach Fire Department and the Carolina Beach Police Department was needed to bring the animal fully onto the shore. Experts said the shark was already dead when emergency crews retrieved it. Officials later removed the body from the sand and are properly disposing of it.Members of the North Carolina Shark Conservancy responded to the scene and conducted a field examination on the sand.“We had some volunteers come out and did a work up, took some basic measurements, and then tissue samples,” said Taylor Evans, CEO of the North Carolina Shark Conservancy.Researchers noted evidence of fishing interaction. The shark had a de