Experts are trying ascertain why 50 baby Hammerhead sharks washed up dead on a Fiji beach at the weekend.
The bodies of the sharks, measuring around 60cm/2' in length, were found along the Nukulau Island beachfront.
A toxic spill of some kind has been ruled out, as no other fish have been affected - and as the sharks all had their fins intact it seems unlikely that the deaths were due to an attempt at shark finning.
The Great Fiji Shark Count said it is willing to work with the Ministry of Fisheries to establish the cause and is sending a team to the island to collect samples from the dead sharks.
A spokesperson for the GFSC said: "It's all assumptions. We are assuming that maybe because baby sharks were always in shallow waters, they could have suffocated due to the change in water temperature.
"It was shocking and sad to lose such a large number of baby sharks at one time.
"There are a lot of questions that we are asking and we can only determine the answers to these questions when we get samples."
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