GROTON, Conn. -- Two fishermen who killed a 2,800-pound great white shark off Block Island, R.I., Monday said they are donating the 16 -foot carcass to the University of Connecticut for scientific research.
Ernie Celotto, 48, and Greg DuBrule, 32, who work out of Noank, said they had turned down 'extremely lucrative offers' for the fish since killing it Friday and agreed to give it to UConn's new Museum of Natural History.
Carl W. Rettenmeyer, museum director, said an autopsy will be performed on the fish and tissue samples taken for shark studies at other universities and institutes. Later the remains will be mounted for exhibit.
The fish was resting Monday in a refrigerated trailer at the Mystic Marinelife Aquarium, but Rettenmeyer was making arrangements to move it to the Storrs campus.
'Sharks of this size are rarely put under the microscope,' Celotto said. 'Maybe research can help find the secret of the shark's immunity' to disease for possible use by humans.
He said it was a different shark than the estimated 20-foot great white tagged several weeks ago in the same area off Block Island.
Celotto and DuBrule, who have been hunting and tagging sharks for more than nine years, said they spotted the great fish Thursday feeding on a whale carcass about 16 miles southeast of Block Island. They came back Friday in two boats with shark-hunting customers.
The great white was harpooned after it failed to take bait offered on a line and reel and killed with two shotgun blasts in a 5 hour struggle, DuBrule said.
They said Peter Benchley, the author of 'Jaws,' described the kill as 'akin to shooting dogs' and done for financial gains.
'Essentially we take great offense at Peter Benchley's remarks,' Celotto and DuBrule said, denying both charges.
Benchley said he was worried the kill would encourage other sport fishermen to seek out great whites, threatening the ocean's most dangerous predator.
The fishermen said Benchley's remarks were ironic because his book about a great white terrorizing a beach community did more to stir up public hysteria and incite shark kills.
