Just in: Blood-spattered Great White Shark found dead, likely illegally killed, at popular swimming hole; deleted Facebook photos appear to show shark caught by fishermen, tail-roped and dragged to shore!

And it isn't the first time a Great White has been mysteriously iced.

A juvenile great white, eight feet or so, has been found washed ashore at Point Lowly, a popular swimming and diving spot in South Australia’s upper Spencer Gulf, around four hundred clicks north-west of Adelaide.

Great Whites aren’t exactly rare in South Australia, click here if you want to examine how often you’ll see ‘em out there, and around Point Lowly, occasionally they’ll swim in a couple of metres of water just off the beach.

“I was there fishing off the rocks October-November. Seen a big White hanging around the rocks a few times. Maybe it was him,” said one commenter in response to the story of the dead juvie White on Adelaide News.

But, while it might be common to see Great Whites, what’s rare is to find one dead, likely slaughtered.

Speculation is rife on social media that a couple of local fishermen hooked the fish with rod and line, tail-roped it and dragged it to shore, leaving it to die.

Photos were shared, quickly deleted.

Fisheries Officers from the Department of Primary Industries and Regions scooped up the animal and took it away for forensic examination.

“With the assistance of locals, the shark was located and retrieved… as part of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the possible cause of death,” a spokesperson said.

Whites are a protected species in Australia, have been since 1999, and if you kill ‘em and get caught you’ll be hit with a ten-gee fine.

It isn’t the first time Whites have been mysteriously iced.

Last year, in two separate incidents, two Great Whites were found “wedged under the reef between South side and Rifle Butt beach” in Margaret River; one shark, according to locals, with a rope still tied to its tail suggesting it had been “dragged and drowned.”