A Florida man claiming to be a boat captain was arrested Thursday after admitting he repeatedly stabbed a shark in the head in a Snapchat video that went viral late last month.
Zane Garrett, 26, was charged with aggravated animal cruelty after gruesomely knifing a bull shark near a wreck site off Key West on May 22 in a video titled “Bud broke my rod,” Local 10 reported.
Garrett, who is identified as a captain on Second Nature Charters’ website, was turned over by an anonymous tipster who saw the horrifying video and reported it to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, citing “safety concerns,” according to the outlet.
Garrett was recently “investigated for false representation” because he does not have the required license to be a captain, it added.
Officials interviewed the man who originally posted the video and pointed them straight to Garrett.
“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,” the tipster said in their report.
“Yah, that’s me,” Garrett admitted when authorities presented him with the gory footage.
Garrett claimed that his actions fell in line with the typical method used to deter sharks from stealing catches, and that stabbing one would ward others off.
He later confessed to stabbing the shark numerous times in an act of “revenge” because the predator “had stolen his fish and was a nuisance,” according to the warrant cited by Local 10.
“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,’” the document stated.
He also confessed that he “did a lot more killing” of sharks with firearms and “has stabbed sharks and/or killed sharks without harvesting them onto his boat many times in the past.”
Authorities condemned the “egregious” slaying for causing unnecessary harm to the shark.
Garrett is being held in the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Key West jail facility on a $10,000 bond. His arrangement is set for June 26.
