230 cm Cuban Night Shark
Not sure i've ever posted this statistic before, but it is estimated that nearly 70 million sharks are killed each year. What's worse, these sharks are killed simply for their fins, and the vast majority are simply rolled back into the ocean, often times still alive. Now, if you consider that it takes many years for most sharks to reach sexual maturity (approximately twelve years for lemon sharks), it's not hard to grasp the dire circumstances facing sharks. Finally, and most depressingly, all this is occurring due to the demand of a billion Chinese for the status-bolstering soup for which the tasteless shark fin adds texture...
If you don't believe me I'm not surprised, as killing sharks flies well under the radar of most people, and, even when people do hear about it, they're not too bothered because, lets face it, sharks eat people right? It's bullshit and truly painful to think about the downfall of one the oldest and most highly evolved animals on the planet at the hands of soup slurping minions and redneck "I'm a real man!" fishermen with brains twice the size yet a third as intelligent as the fish they slaughter.
Alright, I got a little carried away there, but, needless to say, you can understand why it feels so good to see that, at least in Bimini, sharks still appear to be doing alright. Another shark biology course, this time from the University of New Brunswick (random i know), came to the lab and stayed from April 26 to May 1st. This time around the weather cooperated and the students got to have a lot of different shark experiences. The highlights included a hammerhead dive that I was able to tag along for, hand feeding wild lemon sharks at Aye's spot, a vertical longline in the Gulf Stream, and a chaotic chasedown that led to easily the most incredible, albeit somewhat unfortunate, natural event i've ever experienced...
As with the last course, we caught two sharks on the vertical longline. This time, instead of two tigers, we caught a 270 cm tiger and a 230 cm Cuban Night Shark. The Cuban was first and, while while the students decided to remain on the pontoon boat, all the volunteers practically jumped off the boat to see the new shark specie. After a quick workup, we released the shark and Kristine swam it down a few meters to get it moving. The tiger was hooked on the last line and everyone got in the water to watch the workup and take pictures. At this point, unbeknownst to all but a few of the volunteers and staff in the water, a large free-swimming tiger was circling about 60 feet below by the cinder block and chum bag at the end of the line. I dove down to about thirty feet and watched it swim around for a bit before it disappeared into the blue. Then, only about five minutes later, I saw what I thought to be the tiger reappearing and swimming towards me, only to realize that it was a large new shark, and that it was swimming towards me. Had it been the tiger I probably would've simultaneously swallowed my snorkel and shit it out my board-shorts. However, it wasn't a tiger and it stayed about twenty feet away from me as it circled behind me and continued past and disappeared. When I got back to the lab I did a little research, and I'm about 90% sure it was a large Silky shark drawn in by the bait and chum still on the line. I didn't get a picture of the mystery shark, however I did get it on video so I do have proof.
Alright, it's late and i'm too tired to describe what happened on the chasedown. I didn't intend to leave it as a cliffhanger, but, like Stallone, just hang on and it'll be worth it...
Is that hammerhead missing a fin?
ReplyDeleteIt's missing all its fins. That's a picture of a dying hammerhead that has been finned and thrown back into the ocean. Because the body of the shark isn't nearly as valuable as the fins, fishing boats ditch the carcasses in order to save valuable space and weight.
ReplyDelete