Fishmonger causes outrage by boasting about selling endangered thresher shark

A fishmonger has caused outrage after boasting about selling a 15ft endangered thresher shark on his stall.

Mat Carter put the 250kg fish on sale on his fish counter after it was caught accidentally by a sprat trawler.

He bought it for £80 and then placed pictures of it online at his Greendale Farm Shop in Farringdon, Devon.

Mat then posted images of the shark laid on an ice-packed fish counter on the store's Facebook page.

One post on the company's page read: ''Who’s coming to buy our thresher shark steaks tomorrow? A 15ft beast landed at Brixham market. Our fishmongers really are very lucky!'

He sold around £250 worth of steaks from the shark - but then drew angry comments from animal lovers.

All three thresher shark species have been recently listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union.

Within hours of promoting the sale of the shark Mat took his pictures down following a backlash of complaints he was 'glorifying' the death of the animal.

Mr Carter has since apologised and said he made the decision to buy the shark because it would have otherwise been 'wasted' and thrown into landfill.

He said: 'When the shark was hauled up it was dead. No one was bidding on it.

'They wouldn’t have sold it otherwise. It was a beautiful animal and I thought it deserved better than to be thrown away.'

Mr Carter said he had to hire a fork lift truck and a lorry to transport the shark, the cost of which was more than he made from selling the steaks.