Spooky images from an abandoned zoo in Australia have shown the remains of a great white shark still floating in its tank.
The footage, taken in 2018 at what used to be the Wildlife Wonderland Park in Victoria, showed the four metre long shark still intact six years after the park closed down and the exhibits abandoned.
When urban explorer Luke McPherson decided to have a look around the abandoned zoo and film his journey it kicked off a campaign to save the shark, named Rosie.
His footage showed the shark in a sorry state, with rubbish thrown into the tank and two panels of glass smashed by vandals.
McPherson said, 'Once I got the light behind the tank I was like wow that's creepy!
'The fumes were so bad you couldn't last longer than a minute in that room, the formaldehyde must have been evaporating.'
'The tank was huge and in bad condition, with a rusting metal frame and smashed panels of glass and trash thrown inside.'
After McPherson's video went viral efforts to rescue Rosie from abandonment were stepped up and the shark found a new home in 2019 at the Crystal World Exhibition Centre, Victoria.
Rosie's story as an exhibit began after being caught and killed in tuna fishing nets off the southern coast of Australia in 1998, multiple nature parks expressed an interest in acquiring the body but in the end Wildlife Wonderland won out.
The great white shark was transported via refrigerated truck, though the journey was forced to make a detour to the South Australian Museum after a woman had been reported missing and officials needed to check Rosie hadn't eaten her.
Rosie was then displayed in a custom built tank full of the toxic preservative formaldehyde, with the overall cost of transporting and displaying the shark ending up at around $500,000.
When Wildlife Wonderland closed down in 2012, Rosie was left abandoned in her tank.
Early attempts to rescue the shark were unsuccessful, but in 2018 McPherson's video went viral and caused a surge of interest in Rosie, though not all of it was good.
Many people broke into the abandoned zoo to get a look at Rosie for themselves and some managed to vandalise the tank the shark was kept in, including one incident where a person threw a chair into the tank.
Police ended up having to warn people away as damage to the shark tank was letting carcinogenic vapours from the formaldehyde preservative leak out and pose a health risk.
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In the end the vandals were probably quite lucky they couldn't do more damage to the shark tank, otherwise they could have caused themselves some serious damage through formaldehyde exposure.
Although Rosie has been rescued from her abandonment, Crystal World Exhibition Centre say the task of saving the shark is far from over. They have set up a GoFundMe to raise money for the continued restoration project.
Featured Image Credit: RosieTheShark/Facebook