KEY WEST, Fla. – An investigation into a Snapchat video of someone repeatedly stabbing a bull shark led state wildlife officers to arrest a Florida Keys man working as a charter captain Thursday.
Zane Garrett, 26, of Stock Island, is facing an aggravated animal cruelty charge.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Garrett works for Key West-based Second Nature Charters, which describes him as a captain on its website ― though officials said he doesn’t have the requisite license, was recently “investigated for false representation“ and works under another captain.
According to investigators, the act happened May 22 at the Vandenberg Wreck site, about seven miles off Key West.
An FWC arrest warrant states that the agency received a tip the next day about “an unknown person repeatedly stabbing a shark in the head with a filet knife and then letting the shark swim away bleeding.”
It states the online tipster, using the agency’s Wildlife Alert system, alerted them to the Snapchat video, posted by another man.
The anonymous tipster described the video, captioned, “Bud broke my rod.”
Under a field labeled “safety concerns,” the tipster said, “Yes, to weapons for the 9-11 inch filet knife, yes to violent behavior for stabbing a shark repeatedly, yes to being concerned over them being dumb enough to post themselves committing a crime.”
Authorities said they interviewed the man who posted the video, who said that Garrett “explained to the customers that this was the preferred method to deter sharks from stealing their catch. The intention of stabbing the shark was to ‘scare’ other sharks away from the area.”
The warrant states that FWC investigators went to the Historic Charter Boat Row in Key West to speak to Garrett on Wednesday.
Garrett, authorities said, “agreed” that “the practice of stabbing sharks to deter them from stealing fish on charter boats” is “common.”
“Mr. Garrett at first denied having ever done the act of stabbing sharks. I explained to Mr. Garrett that FWC received a video of a person stabbing a shark,” the warrant states. “I showed Mr. Garrett the original Snapchat video titled ‘Bud broke my rod’ and asked if that was him in the video stabbing the shark. Mr. Garrett said, ‘yah, that’s me.’”
The warrant states that Garrett admitted “that stabbing a shark in the head does not deter it from stealing his fish and that the shark’s liver is what is the deterrent.”
“When I asked why he stabbed the shark if he knew that it didn’t work, Mr. Garrett admitted that it was more for revenge because the (shark) had stolen his fish and was a nuisance,” it states. “I asked Mr. Garrett if he thought that the repeated blows would eventually kill the shark, to which he replied, ‘No. It takes a lot more to kill a shark than stabbing it in the head.’”
He also admitted he “did a lot more killing” of sharks with guns, authorities said, and admitted “he has stabbed sharks and/or killed sharks without harvesting them onto his boat many times in the past.”
The investigator concluded that the “egregious” act inflicted “excessive, repeated and unnecessary pain or suffering on the shark.”
As of Thursday afternoon, Garrett was being held in the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Key West jail facility on a $10,000 bond.