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Photo: Abby Gilbert / REUTERS
Abby Gilbert's daughter likes animals, as she recently demonstrated.
A video shows how eleven-year-old Billie Rea from Hobart, Tasmania, frees a small shark that was stranded between rocks on Kingston Beach.
"I hadn't seen the shark at all," the mother reported to ABC.
But her daughter has this innate sense of animals.
"And then she just went down without saying anything or having any doubts." The shark was wedged between rocks in very shallow water at low tide.
"When I saw him, I knew the nature of it, so that he couldn't hurt her."
The trapped animal was reported to be an Australian swell shark (Cephaloscyllium laticeps), a member of the dogfish family and harmless to humans.
The species lives in water depths of 150 to 220 meters, but can also be found near the coast.
Swell sharks have the ability to swell their bodies by ingesting water.
They sometimes hide in crevices in the rock to protect themselves.
Billie Rea's mother documented the fish rescue with her cell phone, the pictures made the rounds on social networks.
"In the video you can see how calm my daughter is and I have the feeling that the animal felt safe with her."
Neville Barrett of the local marine research institute praised Billie Rea's efforts, according to the ABC, but noted that there are fish on the coast that are poisonous and could pose a threat.
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