dozens of sharks washing up dead in California

An otherwise highly-resilient species of shark, the leopard shark, is turning up dead all over the northern California coast, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to reports, dozens of leopard sharks have either washed ashore dead since April, or have been found so badly injured and in pain that the creatures were literally pounding their heads into the sand in what some locals said appeared to be suicide attempts.

A report in The Oakland Tribune explains that a California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) necropsy has pinned the deaths on "inflammation, bleeding, and lesions in the brain, and hemorrhaging from the skin near vents," as well as bleeding around internal organs. Based on findings, it appears as though the creatures died a slow and painful death, but experts do not know why the sharks are suffering this awful fate.