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When Charles Bangley hauled a two-metre-extended blue shark on board a fishing boat off Nova Scotia’s Eastern Passage in late August, he thought it was just a different regimen shark capture. But he was incorrect. This fish was a target of shark-on-shark violence.
“When this shark arrived up on to the deck, it turned quite clear just about quickly that there was a significant wound on the back.”
Bangley is a biologist at Dalhousie University. He experiments sharks, so the injured blue shark he caught wasn’t in any threat — at least, not from him.
Bangley heads up the Ocean Engineering challenge at Dalhousie. He teaches maritime biology college students how to tag sharks electronically so that their movements can be researched. But what he noticed on this certain shark, surprised him.
“At the time we had it form of laid out on the facet of the boat, exactly where we get our measurements, points like size, and girth and all that, we could in fact very evidently see this large chunk mark that was on the back of the shark.”
The bite was clean, possibly only a couple several hours old. Bangley asked his Dalhousie colleague Chris Harvey-Clark to look at the wound. Harvey-Clark is a maritime biologist, shark pro and creator of the guide Maritime Maritime Daily life.
He knew what he was searching at. “It experienced totally typical attribute bites of a massive white shark on it.”
Harvey-Clark was capable to use the chunk mark to estimate the dimensions of the shark. “Someplace concerning 4. and 4.4 metres in length. So it was a superior dimensions shark. You wouldn’t want to bump into the shark on a dim night.”
And Harvey-Clark is aware of all about bumping into good white sharks. Last yr, he was scuba diving in the strategies to Halifax harbour when he observed something extremely large swimming nearby.
“Owning a 4-metre-prolonged white shark excitement you consistently, coming in examining you out, likely away, coming again each time, circling inshore so if you were being a seal your route is slash off. That’s a horrifying working experience.”
Shifting seasons for white sharks
Horrifying more than enough that Harvey-Clark admitted he is not completed as considerably diving this year as he generally would. He’s not frightened of white sharks, but he has a balanced respect for one particular of the ocean’s major predators. And he thinks we are definitely observing far more of them in Nova Scotia’s waters.
“We employed to believe shark year was July to September. Nicely, shark period is now far more like June to at least November. And that was what astounded me when I encountered the shark past yr. What is a white shark performing below in November? They should be heading south by now.”
No 1 actually understands how quite a few white sharks are out there. They arrive below to feed on seals, and there is no scarcity of meals. Harvey-Clark estimates there are about 440,000 seals in the Maritimes and they develop yet another 87,000 seals every single 12 months. That blend of abundant foods and a warming ocean makes Nova Scotia waters a lot more desirable to terrific white sharks and other shark species.
That’s why shark tagging systems are so crucial. They expand our know-how of exactly where sharks are living, feed and breed. And that is critical for comprehension the health and fitness not just of the sharks, but also of our oceans.
That operate is also carried out by an additional Nova Scotia-dependent investigation group, the Shark and Ray Conservation Centre, headed by an additional Dalhousie shark researcher, Manuel Dureuil. He compares the part of sharks in the ocean to wolves in the Yellowstone Nationwide Park. When wolves ended up reintroduced to the park as leading predators, they assisted restore balance to a ruined ecosystem.
“It can be comparable in our oceans,” Dureuil states, “but we just never see it. We do not see how degraded it is and we never ever see the essential purpose that sharks can engage in in stabilizing other populations.”
1 matter all these shark researchers share is a enthusiasm for these historical animals — Harvey-Clark notes they have been in our oceans for 450 million several years, “that is longer than trees have been about” — and a want to get much more men and women to fully grasp that sharks are not inherently perilous, but a important part of our underwater world.
Rewards of shark tagging for learners
Manuel Dureiul says that when college students just take aspect in tagging sharks, they get the distinctive option to essentially see the animals up near.
“The shark is seeking at you and you see a substantial, predatory, gorgeous animal. You’re not afraid of it. You might be just fascinated by it. It can be unbelievable. They are such beautiful creatures.”
They are also remarkably resilient. The blue shark attacked by a wonderful white will possible recover pretty quickly from the expertise.
“They recover from wounds like that, and incredibly, quite quickly,” Charles Bangley says. “So I would say by this time up coming calendar year, you’d have some good scarring on that shark from that bite, but it would not be any where in the vicinity of these huge open wounds.”
Resilient or not, the wounded shark was rejected for the tagging program. The electronic tags are inserted surgically and are high priced. The researchers felt this shark had absent via ample. It was dropped back into the ocean.
David Pate is a journalist, broadcaster and writer in Halifax. His most current venture is the podcast “National Anthems: The Worst Songs in the Earth.”
