Shark Newz

CAPE COD (USA)- Swimmers and boaters beware. The great whites are coming back to Cape Cod in the summer. While the flocks of tourists and summer residents begin their migration to the Cape so do the sharks. The municipalities of the Cod are cautioning swimmers and boaters to stay safe.

The sharks will number more than before, so say experts. They have been spending their winters in warmer waters and are now coming back. The great white sharks love Cape Cod in summer because there’s plenty of their favorite food to eat — grey seals. They’re more and more abundant due to decades of marine protection.

“It’s that increase in the grey seal population that we’ve seen over the last four decades that’s now drawing these sharks closer to shore. The café is open and these sharks have come here to feed,” said Greg Skomal, a scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries to WCVB News.

Constantly advancing technologies allow scientists to determine when sharks will arrive and how long they’ll hang around. Harpoon tags on three dozen great whites track their migration to Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and even Bermuda, and then back north again.

See the full video news item on WCVB.

Great white swimming with tuna. Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/Niall Kennedy

MIAMI (USA)– Marine scientists from the University of Miami encountered an unexpected guest in the warm waters off the Florida Keys: a great white.

The RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program, was doing a routine sampling of shark population on the water just east of Islamorada when they hooked a 10-11-foot great white shark.

The shark, swimming in approximately 100-feet of water, wasn’t tagged nor could the team take samples because the line snapped as they tried to reel it in.

Although great whites are not frequent visitors of the subtropical coasts of Florida they are spotted more often lately. Still, sightings of a great white is rare in South Florida as they prefer colder waters.

Delaware shark washed ashore. Photo courtesy: Colby Beaumont.

MURIWAI BEACH (NEW ZEALAND)- At Muriwai Beach, New Zealand a rare pregnant oceanic whitetip shark washed up ashore. The Department of Conservation speaks of an ‘exceptional find’. In the eastern US state of Delaware beachgoers rescued a washed up shark.

Oceanic whitetip
The oceanic whitetip is the only one of her species ever to have been found on a New Zealand beach and was pregnant with 12 pups. The species usually live in tropical waters and have become endangered due to its popularity in shark-fin soup.

Man-eater
The oceanic whitetip has a bad reputation as a man-eating shark and is considered to be dangerous because it will eat anything, according to the Department of Conservation.

Embalmed
The person who found the shark tried to save the pups and delivered them when he saw one sticking out, but they did not survive. The shark will be embalmed for research at the Auckland Museum of Natural Sciences . The pups will also be used to find out more about the species, especially its diet and anatomy.

Live shark
In Delaware, USA, a man made a startling discovery when he hit Rehoboth Beach last week. A live shark on the beach. He tried to push the shark back into the water by prodding it with driftwood, but it was too heavy and didn’t budge.

Smooth dogfish
Another person dragged the shark by the tail and got it back into the water. The shark was estimated to be 4 ½ feet-long. Delaware state scientists who reviewed the photographs said it looked like a smooth dogfish shark.

Sevengill shark. Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/J.

SAN DIEGO (USA)- Off the coast of La Jolla, close to San Diego, California, scuba divers have spotted large sevengill sharks swimming this week. The sharks, inhabitants of the US Pacific Coast disappeared about 70 years ago but made a spectacular comeback. 

In the past several years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of sevengill shark sightings in the area. The 5-to-8 foot meat eaters don’t appear to be too interested in people, but people are interested in them.Divers are pushing for a scientific explanation to explain this recent phenomenon inside La Jolla Cove.

Rod Watkins, owner of Scuba San Diego Incorporated, says to NBC News he sees more and more sevengill sharks every season. “They’re the biggest breathing attraction in this ecological reserve.”

The sharks are native to the West Coast, but disappeared locally 70 years ago – now underwater encounters are growing.

Diver Michael Bear is so captivated by the mystery of their return he set up the website Sevengillsharksightings.org where divers can log encounters. So far, the website has more than 50 high definition videos and 200 photos of the rare sharks.

There have not been any reports of sevengill sharks being aggressive recently. There were a couple reports a couple years ago of divers being bumped at La Jolla cove, but that’s about it.

View more videos at: http://nbcsandiego.com.

Bull shark in the Bahamas. Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/AlKok.

NOOSA BEACH (AUSTRALIA)- A beach was closed rapidly when one shark was chasing another out of the water. Lifesavers pulled out a dying 2 meter long bull shark onto the beach.

Noosa Surf Club lifesavers on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast  quickly closed the beach after a surfer saw a large bull shark chasing a “sick” shark, and the body of a bull shark washed up on the sand.

The bull shark was chased out of the water by a 4 meter long shark. It appeared the larger shark was chasing the sick shark and it wallowed in the white water for a fair while with people looking on.

Sharks are said to be rare at Noosa Beach. Yet a large tiger shark, possibly three metres long, was spotted patrolling the waters of Noosa National Park in January and a 4.78m pregnant tiger shark weighing 500kg was captured off nearby Yarooma Beach.

Scientists say bull shark sightings increase following floods because of the species’  breeding habits.

Read more at the Herald Sun.

CAPE TOWN (SOUTH AFRICA)- A newlywed couple, cage diving off the coast of South Africa got the scare of a lifetime when a great white shark ignored the bait and went straight for the cage.

With its head the shark entered the cage, threshing about. The couple got a with quite the scare.

A tourist who watched filmed the incident and put on YouTube. It went viral with over a million views.

A Gansbaai company has reduced the size of its shark cage viewing gap by 10 percent after the incident. great white managed to ram its head into a safety cage holding a group of tourists.

See the video at ABC News:

Sharks migrating of PalmBeach

PERTH (AUSTRALIA)- Beaches in Perth, Western Australia, were closed this week when a unusually large group of sharks was spotted just offshore. by a chopper crew.

Around 100 sharks were spotted just one-third of a mile off a popular beach. The crew of a rescue helicopter spotted the animals while they were feeding on a school of bait fish. A local beach manager called the size of the school, also known as a shiver,  ”absolutely unusual.”

See the video shot from the chopper.

Chopper sees big shark group near beach

Ragged-Tooth of Sand Tiger Shark. Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons/Jessica On Paper.

DE MOND (SOUTH AFRICA)- An angler in the shallow waters at De Mond, outside Struisbaai, was bitten by a ragged-tooth shark, or sand tiger shark, which he caught in a fishing contest. He didn’t get away with catching the shark on the line. It bit him right when a wave knocked him over.

The fisherman was taking part in a tag-and-release angling competition on Saturday morning when he got bitten by the 1.5-metre ragged-tooth shark. He was in the process of measuring and releasing the shark in shallow surf when a wave knocked him over and the shark bit him.

The man was was airlifted to Bredasdorp and later transferred by ambulance to a private hospital in Hermanus where he is undergoing surgery to repair damaged tendons.

GANSBAAI (SOUTH AFRICA)- Where commercial shark dive operators and official conservation organisations cooperate, sharks are rescued. As in the case of a   a juvenile female Great White Shark in the South African waters of Gansbaai, entangled in fishing line.

The line had become wrapped around the shark’s head and through its gills, and another half a metre, with hooks and bait attached to it, was trailing behind it. She  was spotted by shark cage diving operators who told the Dyer Island Conservation Trust, which runs conservation and research programmes in the region.The shark would have faced certain death if the line remained in place,

Great White Sharks are a protected species in South Africa, but are illegally targeted by shore-based fishermen. Each year, about 30 of the species die in the shark nets off the KwaZulu-Natal coast.

HONOLULU (HAWAII)- Hawaiian shark conservation advocate Ocean Ramsey made the worldwide internet news. She swam out of the cage with a great white shark off the coast of Mexico, making it look really easy and peaceful.

Ramsey, a free-diving expert, recently took a risk few others in the world have dared – swimming in open water with several adult great whites. She released the footage on interneton Valentine’s Day to show her love for these beautiful but most feared sharks and ask attention for their endangered status.

After two days observing the white pointers from a cage, Ramsayventured into open water, kicking slowly towards a 5m female before grabbing its dorsal fin.

The feelings coursing through her body at that moment were a mixture of “incredible joy and breathtaking emotions”.

Watch the video below: