‘The head’s missing, we’ll have no idea’: Curley has questions after decapitated shark washes up near Ocean Shores

A thresher shark washed ashore near Ocean Shores last week, KREM 2 reported. Beachgoers spotted it intact on the sand. When they came back hours later, somebody had sawed the head clean off — and taken it with them.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) officials said the missing head prevented researchers from completing tests that could have determined what killed the shark. John Curley, host of “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, was unmoved.

“Oh, please,” Curley said after hearing the report. “The head’s missing, we’ll have no idea.”

‘Somebody does you a favor’

KIRO producer Joe Wallace said the outrage over a missing shark head struck him as overblown, because he’s been the guy with the knife.

“We used to go fishing, and we’d catch a shark, and you save the body to get some shark meat from, and you cut the head off, and you put it outside, and you let it get eaten by bugs, and you keep the jaw,” Joe said. “Very common.”

Joe pointed out the contradiction: when a whale washes up on a Washington beach, everyone panics about how to dispose of it. Someone trims a fifth of a dead shark, and suddenly it’s a crime scene.

“Somebody does you a favor and cuts a fifth of the shark off, and now you’re complaining about it?” Joe said.

WDFW researcher Lisa Hillier told Surfer that intact specimens are critical because they allow biologists to take complete measurements, identify the cause of death, and determine whether the shark died from fishing bycatch, toxic algae, or something else entirely.

“When the head’s cut off, that changes all of the measurements,” Hillier said.

El Niño could bring more sharks north

The thresher shark is typically found in warmer waters of the North Pacific. But Hillier said a strong El Niño developing in the Pacific is pushing warmer currents north, and Washingtonians should expect to see more warm-water species showing up on local beaches, according to Surfer.

“We have warmer currents, and that allows fish that have a warmer threshold for their temperature to come up into different waters,” Hillier told the media outlet.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts a 63% chance of a very strong El Niño during November 2026 through January 2027, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Climate Hubs. A striped marlin caught off Washington in August already set a new state record — another signal of how warm the coastal waters have become, NOAA reported.

Bear or shark?

The shark story naturally led Curley, Joe, and KIRO producer Brady Robic into what Curley considered the only question worth asking: Would you rather lose a thumb to a bear or a shark?

Joe went bear. So did Brady, but for different reasons.

“At least at that point, you could say I fought it,” Brady said. “If I lost it to a shark, my hand might have been under the water. Chomp, take it. If it’s a bear, at least I’m taking a swing before he eats it.”

KIRO traffic reporter Nate Conners went shark, arguing it would be quicker and less painful.

“A bear might kind of gnaw on it and rip it and be more painful,” Nate said.

Curley also went shark, but not because of pain.

“I’m not talking about the pain. I’m not talking about the speed in which the thing consumes you,” Curley said. “I’m talking about stories to be told later on at a bar.”

His logic was that everybody goes swimming. A shark-thumb story means every time someone’s at the beach, they think of Curley.

“What we’re trying to do is drive more people to think about me,” Curley said.

Nate still stuck with shark, while Joe and Brady stayed with bear. Their reasoning: the better bar story isn’t the injury — it’s the fight.

“The better story is how you fought off a bear or how you got away,” Joe said.

“And all he got was just your thumb,” Curley conceded.

Anyone with information about the shark’s missing head is asked to call WDFW police.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The John Curley Show” weekdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM.

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