This is the moment a baby shark gets off the hook and back into the sea to escape men fishing from a boat in Turkey.

The incident took place when Mehmet Ural was fishing off the back of the boat with friends in Mersin, on the country’s Mediterranean coast, after having taken the boat out from the Kumkuyu Marina.

The footage shows Mehmet fishing the baby shark, which is about 70 centimetres in length, out of the water and plopping it on the wooden decking.

The stunned fishermen observe the small shark for a while before it manages to break free from the hook. The shark flaps about on the wood for a few seconds before flipping itself back into the water as the clip ends.

The fisherman appears to realise that the shark is about to escape, and tries to stamp his foot onto its tail to stop it, but too late.

Ural later told local media: “When we arrived, something caught our fishing line about 250-300 metres offshore. We said, ‘I wonder if it got caught on a rock or something.’

“Then I pulled the fishing line and we realised that we had caught a fish as we were pulling. When it approached our boat, we saw it was a shark. It struggled so much that it got away.

“It was about 60-70 centimetres in size. We were surprised and scared.”