A walker at Tappen’s Beach in Little Compton made a rare find this week — a deceased sand tiger shark. The species is considered critically endangered, and resident Peter Tirpaeck reached out to Mystic Aquarium to report the find.

Scientists there contacted the Atlantic Shark Institute, and biologists later went to the site to collect the shark — it is currently in frozen storage with NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, pending a necropsy by the Apex Predator Lab in Narragansett.

Sand tigers are critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.