A Fin Mess!

Naked Shark-Humping Mystery Man Still At Large

Florida Gators coach and Jimmy John’s owner issue denials!

naked man shark hump boat
Files/Getty Images

The list of deniers grows as animal lovers continue their relentless pursuit of the naked man sprawled atop a dead shark’s carcass in a viral internet photo —and two high-profile look-alikes have run for cover!

On Monday, a spokesperson for the The University of Florida athletic department told reporters that — despite the uncanny resemblance between the pictured man’s toothy grin and that of Gators football coach Jim McElwain (inset, right)— “it’s not him!”


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Likewise, the renowned trophy hunter Jimmy John Liautaud (inset, left) who heads the Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches chain, issued a statement Tuesday that the naked man in the picture is “definitely not” him. Suspicion shifted to Liautaud because he, too, looked an awful lot like the anonymous shark-humper — and has posed grinning with his kills on past hunting and fishing expeditions.

British animal-rights advocate and TV presenter Anneka Svenska touched off photo furor on May 5, when she Tweeted the image with a call to “find him & ask him why he did this? Where is the humour in humiliating slaughtered animals?”


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The name-and-shame hunt for the unabashedly bare-it-all fisherman recalls the case of Walter Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who slaughtered Africa’s most beloved lion, Cecil, during a 2015 hunting trip to Zimbabwe. Although unlike the Cecil case, in which a paper trail quickly exposed the hunter’s identity, crucial clues to have proven as elusive as the pictured man’s sense of dignity.