What ‘s hurting the Great White Sharks at Guadalupe?

We are coming towards the end of another great season at Guadalupe Island. Just like last year, we added a lot of new sharks to the photo ID database and saw a lot of our regulars that came back. We definitely see an increasing number of sharks, specially for sharks in the 10-12′ range. It’s great to see that conservation efforts seem to have a positive impact on shark numbers. We regularly see in excess of 20 different sharks on our expeditions, a huge increase over 10 years ago, when we were lucky to see 10 and often went whole days without seeing a single shark.

One thing that I noticed though is the increasing number of sharks with injuries caused by ropes or fishing gear. A couple of years ago it was “Luca” that swam around with a rope around his body. Luckily his rope was cut and he’s doing fine. There is just a black scar left that will disappear in a year or so.


Luca with a black scar from a wrapped rope.

This year we saw a few sharks with either fresh wounds from ropes or still having the ropes attached around them. One of these sharks is a new female.


New female with rope around her

The rope around her body is embedded in the gills on both sides.

Her underside shows a faint scar from the rope that was digging into her. (It’ kind of hard to see, just in front of her pectoral fins) The rope goes around her head and into the bottom of her gills on both sides, so it looks like the rope is still inside and the wound has closed around it. She must have gotten that rope wrapped around her quite a while ago, for it to be completely embedded.

This makes at least 3 sharks now that had a rope wrapped around them. Where do these ropes come from?

I hope that somehow this rope can get cut, otherwise I fear that this shark is not going to survive. We also need to find out where these ropes are coming from, so that we might be able to stop the sharks from getting entangled in the future.

Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO Shark Diver

About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.

24

Oct 2017

By Shark DiverUncategorizedComments Off

White Sharks Shock California Lifeguards?

The Inquisitr‘s headline reads “Shark Drone Shock Lifeguards”

They report: “A new shark drone used by Southland lifeguards in California reveal shocking evidence of the number of sharks swimming near the shoreline at Seal Beach. It wasn’t something lifeguards there were prepared to see.”

Imagine the shock these lifeguards must have felt. Who knew that there were sharks in the water? Where have these guys been lifeguarding all their lives? At a pool?

Actually, when reading the article, you’ll find out that the lifeguards are perfectly capable and were not “shocked” by the drone footage. They write: “The Chief Seal Beach Lifeguard, Joe Bailey, tells CBS News Los Angeles This morning, we launched it and 10 minutes later, we knew there were 10 to 12 sharks all in the Surfside [Beach] area”

The article further states: “Bailey loves the shark drone. It’s easy and safe for everyone to see where the creatures are and when to steer clear of them.

“It works great. It flies up about 100 feet, looks down a wide area, and when we see the shadows, we’ll go down and focus in on them.”

A juvenile Great White in waist-high water at Surfside was captured by the drone Monday morning. At the time, there weren’t any swimmers in the water.”

And here is my favorite part of Joe Bailey’s statement according to the Inquisitor “If we get bigger sharks or we get sharks that are aggressive, we’re actually going to close the water. But right now, we have sharks that are 5- to 6-feet long, non-aggressive, acting like normal sharks, feeding on bottom fish, doing exactly what we would expect them to do. That’s why we have it posted just to let people know that they are there.”

Great response Joe Bailey! No hype, no scaring anyone and promising a reasonable response, should there be any potentially dangerous sharks coming too close to swimmers. I believe that closing a beach for a period of time is the best response to the sighting of a potentially dangerous shark.

Overall a good article, if only they could find a headline that is not in direct conflict with the article. Maybe something like “Lifeguards NOT worried about white sharks swimming off the coast”?

Read the entire article here

Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO Shark Diver

Shark Diver is running great white shark expeditions to Guadalupe Island from August – November, tiger shark dives in the Bahamas from April – November and bull shark trips to Fiji from May – June.

About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.

17

Jun 2015

By Shark Divercalifornia lifeguard, good shark policy, stupid headlines, swimming with sharks, UncategorizedComments Off

10 ft. white shark being eaten? Mystery solved!

Yesterday we talked about the international headlines of “Great white shark being eaten by sea monster”.

Here is a response by CISRO, the organization who placed the tag on the shark in question.

When we looked at its data there was a period of approximately three weeks just before the tag surfaced where the temperature recorded was higher than the surrounding sea, but where the tag continued to ‘dive’ in a pattern consistent with a white shark. During this time, the tag failed to record light. Data before and after suggest the tag was functioning normally. The temperature recorded for these three weeks was consistent with that of the core body temperature of a white shark but too low for something like a killer whale.

They go on to explain, what they think had happened.

At one point the shark that had eaten the tag dived to a depth of 570 m – this is not unusual for white sharks – it is normal behaviour. This dive took place about one week prior to the tag recording the higher temperatures (not immediately before as some have reported) and the two events are not related.

All evidence suggests that the tag had been eaten by another white shark. We have seen white sharks biting each other before, sometimes removing pieces of tissue in the process. We concluded that this was the most likely explanation – One shark bit off a little more than he could chew and ended up swallowing the tag.

We never concluded that the 3m shark was consumed by another much larger shark.

Yesterday I questioned the “scientists” conclusion, that a sea monster ate the shark. Now we know that there were not even any scientists that concluded that, it was simply the filmmaker ignoring what the group who placed the tag in the first place had to say. Now that’s something you’d expect from a Sci Fi channel production, not a Smithsonian “documentary”!

Cheers,
Martin Graf
CEO Shark Diver

About Shark Diver. As a global leader in commercial shark diving and conservation initiatives Shark Diver has spent the past decade engaged for sharks around the world. Our blog highlights all aspects of both of these dynamic and shifting worlds. You can reach us directly at staff@sharkdiver.com.

12

Jun 2014

By Shark DiverUncategorizedComments Off