Mystery continues to surround the identity of a man who was photographed posing nude while straddling a dead shark in an image that prompted some furious reaction.

The controversy over the trophy photo started Friday after British broadcaster and conservationist Anneka Svenksa tweeted the bizarre image and asked people to find out who the man was. “Where is the humour in humiliating slaughtered animals?” she asked.

She wrote that she found the picture on Facebook.

Who is this man? Please RT, find him & ask him why he did this? Where is the humour in humiliating slaughtered animals? @ChrisGPackham pic.twitter.com/uHN37OywCx — Anneka Svenska (@AnnekaSvenska) May 5, 2017


Folks on the Internet immediately began sleuthing and they quickly came up with two possible answers.

Jim McElwain. (Stephen M. Dowell / TNS)

Many thought he was Florida Gators’ Jim McElwain but, according to Sports Illustrated, the football coach vehemently denied the claim Tuesday night. “I don’t know who it is, but it isn’t me,” he said.

Another guess was that the unclothed shark humper was James Liautaud, the millionare founder of Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwich chain. According to the Chicago Tribune, Liautaud is an avid hunter who has posed smiling with elephants, rhinos and other animals that he had killed.


Jimmy John Liautaud (Chicago Tribune)

A spokesman for the business man, however, also denied that his boss was the person depicted.

Not everyone is buying that, however, and a “BoycottJimmyJohns” hashtag quickly sprang up on Twitter along with some brutal comments where he was called a “stinking pig” and“human scumbag.”

Whoever the mystery man is or is not, the pose he struck did not endear him to marine creature experts.


“That’s disrespectful to the shark,” said Marie Levine, executive director of the Shark Research Institute to the Huffington Post.

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debbi.baker@sduniontribune.com

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