No Takers for Head of 15-Foot Shark

A Ventura fisherman spent the week trying to sell the head of a 2,500-pound great white shark he killed off Santa Cruz Island.

But there were no takers. So Friday, Jim Carpenter took the jaw--a collector’s item--from the 15-foot fish.

Carpenter, a commercial fisherman who was looking for swordfish off the Channel Islands, said it took him more than five hours Monday to catch the huge shark after he shot it with a dart.

The shark was seen initially from an airplane by Carpenter’s co-worker, Ernie Maas, who radioed to Carpenter in the boat. After the shark was paralyzed with the dart, Carpenter and a crew member removed its head and left the body in the sea.

“The shark was so big and old that the meat would have been tough. I would have gotten only about 20 cents a pound for it,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter said he hoped someone would buy the head to have it stuffed and mounted.

He added, however, that the teeth were only 1 3/4 inches long, and not the two inches that are required by most collectors.

“It’ll take me a couple of days of full-time work to clean the jaw,” Carpenter said.

“It’s a lot of work. You have to cut off the skin and make it all pretty-looking.”

Although the shark was somewhat larger than usual, it was not a rarity, said Fred Rodriguez, dispatcher at the Channel Islands National Park. Year-round warm waters and an abundant food supply in the marine sanctuary near the islands attract large sharks, including great whites, to the area, he said.