Lost at sea

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• A shark caught in the net of a fisherman is nothing new, but when it's the first Lego shark find since a cargo ship lost its load of nearly 5 million pieces at sea nearly 30 years ago, the news makes waves.

The BBC reports that hundreds of pieces from the Tokyo Express cargo ship have been recovered this year; the ship was hit by an unexpected wave on Feb. 13, 1997, and lost 62 shipping containers some 20 miles off Land's End, England.

Since then, the BBC reports that the pieces have been washing ashore in southwest England, the Channel Islands, Wales, Ireland and even the Netherlands and Norway, but the shark find by fisherman Richard West, 35, of Plymouth, England, was the first of the 22,200 dark gray and 29,600 light gray Lego sharks lost in the incident.

"The sharks sink, which explains why so few have been found," said Tracey Williams of the Lego Lost at Sea project. "There are probably some 50,000-plus still lying on the seabed, some making their way ashore, others heading into deeper waters."