You might expect to see a deer, raccoon or even a turkey somewhere in your yard, but a large shark is not usually in the standard wildlife mix in the yard, even in Australia. A Queensland man shared a Facebook post about a bull shark that managed to swim to his yard after a major flood.
Posted on the Gold Coast Community Facebook page, Timothee Morrison Dufour shared the image showing the shark’s swimmer just outside a black metallic fence in her yard.
“Another wild day on the Gold Coast! Shark Bull in the yard behind Burleigh Waters,” he wrote.
The post received over 1,000 comments and over 2,500 shares on Facebook.
People commented jokingly about the unexpected water visitor. One person warned Dufour not to be “tempted to go to the bathroom.” Another person remarked that there were probably “a few snakes there as well.”
The Queensland Bureau of Meteorology issued a storm warning on Thursday. It was said that heavy rain could cause flash floods. It was also said that they existed (190mm [7 inches] rain from 9:00. “
Burleigh Waters, where Dufour took the photo, received about 104 mm (about 4 inches) of rain the other day, according to News.com.au.
Artur Debat / Getty
Despite the fact that Dufour shared the photo and people believed that it was entirely possible for the floods to create enough water for a shark to mosey near the courtyard of the photo, some people were more skeptical, considering it false.
“This is actually the worst photoshop that people have fallen for that is beyond me,” one person commented.
Another commenter pointed out the problems he had with the photo, indicating that it was fake, but said that a video would prove it wrong.
“The shadows don’t fit properly and there’s a bit of pixelation around the wing,” he wrote.
Although it seems possible for the photographer to live near a body of water, and a shark could have gone through the floods, the details of the amount of rain and the average size of a bull shark also raise a few red flags. Conformable National Geographic, bull sharks are usually between 7 and 11.5 feet long and weigh between 200 and 500 pounds, making it look much longer than the fin would have come out in a maximum of about 7 inches of water.
While the floods could have become particularly large near where Dufour took the photo, it is also entirely plausible that the image is just a well-designed prank and makes us all laugh.
Newsweek contacted Dufour via Facebook for comments.