A local beachgoer in Florida was caught on film dragging a small shark out of the ocean, where it was believed to have been washed ashore on Saturday.

Ashleigh Walters, a television news reporter from the local NBC affiliate WPTV, was able to photograph the incident near the ocean at Palm Beach.

Her video shows the man approach the defenseless shark. He then grabs the animal by its tail and proceeds to drag it along the sand further into the shore.

The shark tries to wiggle its way out of the man's clutches but is ultimately placed back on the sand stepped on by its assailant.

The man then leans over the animal and has his picture taken by other people.

After a while, another man comes by to pick the shark up from the beach and place it back to the ocean. The sea creature, however, can still be seen struggling to make its way back to deeper waters.

On Walters' Facebook page, where the video of the event at the beach can be found, the news reporter wrote that some people took the shark further into the ocean after the end of the clip.

She added that the sea creature didn't resurface for a few minutes.

The video drew outrage and criticism from people on social media, with many pointing out that it clearly showed animal cruelty. Other commenters, however, argue that what the man on the video did was simply fishing.

The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) of Florida allows sharks to be harvested in waters covered by the state.

The incident in Florida comes days after an Argentinian man pulled a young Franciscana dolphin out of the ocean and paraded it on the beach for tourists and other beachgoers to see and take pictures of. The creature later died because of the manhandling it had suffered.

The World Animal Protection, an animal rights group in Australia, condemned what the beachgoers did to the animal. It said that they used the tiny dolphin as a form of entertainment.

"This terribly unfortunate event is an example of the casual cruelty people can inflict when they use animals for entertainment purposes, without thinking of the animal's needs," a spokeswoman for World Animal Protection said.