A Sydney real estate agent has become a social media star after footage of her picking up a shark in one of the city's beloved ocean pools and throwing it back into the sea went viral.
The footage, captured with a mobile phone, shows Melissa Hatheier picking up the child-sized Port Jackson shark in the pool at Oak Park in Cronulla.
She then walks a few steps and throws it over the side of the pool, into the open ocean.
The incident comes less than a month after the removal of a distressed great white shark from Manly Beach to the nearby Fairy Bower Pool captivated onlookers.
Ms Hatheier said she surfed at Cronulla regularly.
"My mum swims there every morning with friends and they rang me saying there was a shark, so I ran down there," she said.
"I saw it and it was just a little Port Jackson so I just thought I should chuck him out.
"He was pretty distressed and bumping into things, so I just followed him around for a bit.
"I just thought I would try and catch him. I just dived on him.
"It was just like picking up a toddler."
'I wouldn't have done it with a great white'
The Port Jackson shark is a bottom-dweller with a distinctive blunt-shaped head and harness-like markings. It can grow up to 1.65 metres long and is considered harmless to people.
"I thought, as long as I keep my hand near its fins it couldn't bite me; I wouldn't have grabbed it by the tail though," Ms Hatheier said.
"I wasn't really scared but I wouldn't have done it with a great white [shark].
"Surfing over the years, you know you see them all the time. They're probably underneath you all the time."
The video was posted on Cronulla Real Estate's Facebook page, describing Ms Hatheier as a "shark wrangler" and with the hashtags #nextlevel and #classicMel.
