UPDATED: Thanks to reader “dangershaw” for providing a link to much more in-depth video of the event.
Some New Zealand fishermen had to fight for their catch while filming for a local television program. The fishermen had been trying to land a hooked a swordfish (Xiphias gladius) when an opportunistic mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) decided to grab a bite. Despite the shark’s best efforts, the fishermen were able to wrestle their catch away and haul it into the boat largely intact.
Massachusetts drivers may soon be able to show off a great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) themed license plate, if a minimum of 1,500 of the plates can be pre-sold by June 20, 2013. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy recently unveiled the new license plates, featuring artwork by marine artist Paul McPhee.
Massachusetts waters around Cape Cod have become a renown aggregation point for white sharks during the summer months. Atlantic White Shark Conservancy have introduced the license plates with the goal of raising awareness, promoting education, and supporting research associated with Atlantic white sharks.
According to the AWSC website…
Atlantic White Shark Conservancy is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization committed to raising public awareness of white sharks.
The Conservancy supports scientific research, improves public safety, and educates the community, to inspire conservation of white sharks in the Atlantic Ocean.
If you are a Massachusetts resident, and you would like to pre-order the AWSC license plate, you can get all the information you need at the campaign website, which includes a link to the license plate order form.
The R.J. Dunlap Marine Conservation recently posted the video above to their Vimeo channel. The video is intended as a supplemental “visual abstract” for the research article “White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) Scavenging on Whales and Its Potential Role in Further Shaping the Ecology of an Apex Predator.” The study is based on observations of great white sharks feeding on the carcasses of whales in South Africa’s False Bay and the impact of these events on the surrounding marine ecosystems.
Some key behavioral observations during scavenging at the sites of the whale carcasses:
You can learn more about the findings of this research by checking out the full journal article, which was written by Chris Fallows, Austin J. Gallagher, and Neil Hammerschlag.
A great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) was hooked by a charter fishing boat about a mile and half off the Fort Lauderdale, Florida coast on Tuesday morning, according to a WPTV report. Five teenagers from the Tallahassee Community College baseball team had chartered the boat. While the crew realized that they had hooked something big, they initially thought it was a bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas). However, after the shark had been on the line for over an hour and a half, they realized it was actually a white shark.
Captain Taco Perez told WPTV that the shark was on the line for “about two hours” before the crew “released the fish after taking a quick couple of photos.” Perez also told WPTV that they estimated the shark to be 13′(4m) in length with a weight of approximately 1,000lb (450kg).
The great white shark is a protected species in Florida waters.
WARNING: Brief utterance of language that some might find offensive.
YouTube user Isaac Brumaghim caught a “surprise attack” by what appears to be a tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), who tried to grab the fisherman’s hooked tuna. The video was shot off of Oahu, Hawaii near Waianae on Sunday, according to a WPTV.com report. Brumaghim captured the event with a GoPro camera he had mounted on his kayak.
The ABC News YouTube channel posted the video above last month which documents what the fisherman say is an 18′ white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) being hooked off the coast of Florida. According to a WFLA report, the video was shot March 15 about 30 miles of the coast of Treasure Island, Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. The fisherman reportedly had the shark on the line for nearly 3.5 hours before the crew cut the line, and let the shark “take the whole rig.”
Mote Marine Laboratory researcher Dr. Robert E. Hueter told WFLA that the shark in the video appears to likely be a member of the Lamnidae and is potentially a mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) or great white. Hueter went on to say that white sharks can occasionally end up in the Gulf.
Great white sharks are a protected species in Florida waters.
According to Business Insider article a report published today in the Journal of Fish Biology documents the first known discovery of a two-headed bull shark fetus (Carcharhinus leucas). The two-headed fetus was discovered in the Gulf of Mexico in 2011, off the Florida coast. The shark fetus, along with multiple other live fetuses, was removed live from its mother by a fisherman. However, it died soon after being removed. According to the report, the fetus was a single shark with two-heads as opposed to being “conjoined twins.” It is the first known recorded case of a bull shark with two heads.
For more information, including photos of the shark fetus, check out the story at Business Insider.
You can also view the abstract at the Journal of Fish Biology.
WARNING: Video contains profanity (and also was shot vertically, which some may find more offensive than the profanity)
YouTube user Bryan Plummer‘s video of a white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) getting its head caught in a shark cage has gone viral and was all over the U.S. national news this morning. The video was shot by Plummer on March 21 and documents a white shark swimming into a shark cage, which appears to have at least two divers in it. Unfortunately, the shark’s head breached the “viewing port” in close proximity to one of the cage divers. Fortunately, no divers were harmed in the incident and the shark managed to free itself.
White sharks lack the ability to swim backwards, so the thrashing seen in the video is not uncommon when a shark gets entangled or caught as was the case in the situation.
The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) eco-tourism industry in Oslob, Cebu has been facing criticism from some conservationists who say that the feeding of the sharks by locals is resulting in unnatural behavior for the world’s largest fish. Critics argue that feeding the whale sharks could make the animals dependent on humans for food and have a negative effect on the sharks ability to find food on their own.
Researchers have expressed similar concerns in the past and have noted that the feeding of the sharks could affect natural migration patterns and make the whale shark more susceptible to poaching and boat-related injuries.
Proponents of Oslob’s whale shark eco-tourism industry say that the sharks are not being harmed, and the industry helps to support the community. Another often-cited benefit of shark-related eco-tourism is that it helps raise awareness about sharks, which can be beneficial to conservation efforts.
CNN Legal Briefs reports that a man who made headlines in January for “wrestling” a shark at an Australian beach has been fired from his job due to the incident occurring while he was on sick leave.
Paul Marshallsea was filmed guiding a shark away from a shallow water where children were swimming. The video went viral and was picked up by international news media organizations. Unfortunately, for Marshallsea, his employer used the video as evidence to fire him, since he had been away from work on sick leave. According to Marshallsea, he was on holiday on his doctor’s orders as treatment for work-related stress, and he feels he was unjustly terminated.
According to the UK’s Mirror Marshallsea’s wife was also on sick leave for work-related stress when they traveled to Australia for a 2-month vacation. Upon returning home to the UK, both were notified by their employer that they had been dismissed from their jobs.