An 8-foot tiger shark left dangling with a hook in its mouth from the Russell-Fields Pier Saturday night has officials trying to figure out how it got there and if it was a criminal action.

PANAMA CITY BEACH — An 8-foot tiger shark left dangling with a hook in its mouth from the Russell-Fields Pier Saturday night has officials trying to figure out how it got there and if it was a criminal action.

A photograph of the shark hanging from the pier with a bird’s nest worth of fishing line from its mouth briefly circulated on Facebook Sunday, prompting outrage as tiger sharks are a protected species and harvest is prohibited in state waters.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is looking into the incident, according to public information officer Rebekah Nelson, and the Beach is reviewing their tapes of the pier to see if that will offer answers, according to Will Spivey the Panama City Beach aquatics and beach superintendent.

“We’re trying to figure out what happened,” Spivey said.

It seems likely, based on comments from people who say they were there when the shark was caught, that its death was an accident.

The shark was cut down from the pier early Sunday morning and sunk. On Monday, Panama City Beach lifeguards were joined by a private diver and tasked with recovering the carcass from the murky waters.

While the lifeguards were out in the water, a group of fisherman watched the spectacle from the end of the pier. One of the fishermen said he was there when the shark caught, and another, Gary Brown, said he was the one that caught it.

Both men said Brown hooked up on “a rope” on the bottom, and spend half an hour reeling in the shark. Brown said the shark was already dead when he landed it — and likely dead before he hooked the rope. Brown said he left the shark dangling so the lifeguards could retrieve it.

“There’s no story here,” he said.

Sharks have been known to fight literally to the death when caught, but at present there’s no way to verify Brown’s story.

The lifeguards retrieved the body of the tiger shark in question and dragged it to shore, where a gaggle of tourists took pictures with the juvenile female, measuring 8 feet 3 inches. The shark was brought to NOAA for an autopsy, according to Spivey.

Tiger sharks have been prohibited from harvest in state waters since January 2012, according to Nelson.

“The change got its start in 2010, after concerned citizens, shark researchers, and shark anglers expressed their desires to the Commission to see increased protections for sharks,” Nelson wrote in an email. “Research conducted outside of the FWC also indicated that tiger shark populations in the Northwest Atlantic and the Keys are declining.

“Florida waters are also essential habitat for young sharks,” she wrote.

To keep protected sharks safe, FWC offers numerous shark fishing tips. Prohibited species should be released immediately and unharmed, left in the water as much as possible, and not brought onto a vessel, pier, bridge or dry land beyond the surf zone.